How the Worst Get on Top

This is neat: a video archive of 50 years of presidential TV ads. Here's a Stevenson ad from 1952 ("Adlai, Love You Madly") that seems every bit as idiotic as anything that's running in the current campaign. And look at this one linking Eisenhower and Robert Taft. It's on the intellectual level of the Teletubbies.

Here's Jackie-O speaking Spanish in what seems to be an appeal to hispanic voters in New York. And here's the famous little-girl-nuked ad that Johnson used to beat Goldwater in 1964. I've never understood why that ad was supposed to be so unfair. Goldwater did call for the use of tactical nukes in Vietnam. However, hearing an amoral wretch like Johnson piously intone,"We mus' luv eech other, oar we mus' die" is enough to turn your stomach.

Hat tip: Neat New Stuff.