The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials, 1952-2004

Nixon the Man (Flash Video 04:21). "...In 1971, President Nixon’s approval rating fell below fifty percent. Despite his 1968 promises to end the Vietnam war, the conflict was dragging on. On the domestic front, inflation and unemployment were rising. Nixon restored his popularity in the election year through a carefully orchestrated series of actions. He made unprecedented diplomatic tours of China and Russia, stepped up efforts to end the war in Vietnam by ordering the bombing of Hanoi, instituted wage and price controls, and ended the military draft - a politically advantageous move given the recent lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18. Nixon’s opponent, liberal South Dakota Senator George McGovern - who won his party’s nomination with a remarkable grassroots campaign sparked by the antiwar movement - called for unilateral American withdrawal from Vietnam and a significant reduction in military spending. McGovern named as his running mate Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton, who, shortly after the convention, revealed that he had been hospitalized for depression and had received shock therapy. At first, McGovern announced his "1,000 percent" support for Eagleton, but he went on to drop him from the ticket and replace him with former ambassador R. Sargent Shriver. The incident created an impression of ineptitude that plagued McGovern throughout the campaign." From The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials, 1952-2004 at The Museum of the Moving Image.