Image Is Everything

Are we going to hit a new low?
We could. Giuliani—his issue is strength against the threat of terrorism. So, naturally, his ads will attack anybody who runs against him by showing that this person is too weak and the times are too dangerous. We'll certainly see ads that portray serious threats against us.

How have presidential campaign ads changed over the years?
They've changed with film and television and have gotten more colorful—flashier and more fast-paced. What's interesting in looking at past and present ads is that, in a lot of ways, the messages and themes haven't changed that much. There's been an emphasis on personality from the beginning. The first important ads were Eisenhower's in 1952, and they were really selling his personality. Eisenhower's ads were effective because they boiled down to sound bites. They focused on three things: government corruption, getting out of the war in Korea and the high cost of living. The most effective campaigns have always focused on simple messages.

In 1968 Roger Ailes, then a TV producer and Richard Nixon consultant, said, "Nobody will ever be elected to major office again without presenting themselves well" on camera. Do you think presidential campaigns are fought and won on TV?
The way you're going to get an impression of a candidate is on television. There were a lot of focus groups done in 2000 and 2004 where people talked about George Bush. Very often you would see undecided voters who didn't really agree with his positions on the issues. But they had a sense that they liked him somehow, and that had a lot to do with what he was able to convey in front of a camera. I think ads play to the emotions, and that plays a very strong role in how we feel about a candidate.

So attack ads weren't really used in the '50s?
The earlier ads were a lot more civil. The Eisenhower ads didn't even attack [Adlai] Stevenson. There were some attacks done by Stevenson, and they're sort of saying Eisenhower would be a puppet if he were elected because he didn't have any political experience. But they were pretty mild. The 1964 election is where you start to see mean ads. The "daisy girl" ad shows a nuclear explosion and implies that Goldwater would get us into nuclear war. Then Goldwater ran ads that said Johnson was corrupt.

Why this shift?
They were afraid. Johnson, because of the fact that he passed civil rights legislation, [worried] he would be attacked for being too liberal. Even though [the Johnson campaign] was ahead in the polls, they felt like they had to play on fear. If you have an incumbent president and his popularity is down or the public is worried, he'll feel compelled to attack the other guy. Look at Bush's ads in 2004—most of his ads are attacking [John] Kerry, really, because Bush's numbers were down, his popularity was down. There were a lot of things going against him.

Sounds like a pretty primal response.
It is. If you have an incumbent president and a relatively unknown newcomer, you try to portray the newcomer as being the worst thing ever. People didn't know John Kerry. The reason the attack ads were so successful was because the Bush campaign was able to define Kerry. People felt they knew Bush and could rely on that even if they weren't crazy about him.