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""Closing Ad 2""

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What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered? Look at the opportunities before us.

This election really isn't about the left versus the right. It's about we the people choosing our government and the choice between freedom versus tyranny.

Nobody has a chronic disease burden like we have. Why are we allowing this to happen to our children?Ultimately, the only thing that will save our country is if we choose to love our kids more than we hate each other.

What is going on here is deeper than politics. It is deeply spiritual. We are being called to rise above the hatred and the fear and the evil.

We need to remember, above and beyond, that we must love our neighbors, that we must treat other people as we hope to be treated.

You want to be a rebel? You want to be a hippie? You want to stick it to the man? Show up on your college campus and try calling yourself a conservative.

America is going to reach heights that it has never seen before. The future is going to be amazing.

Don't you want healthy children? Don't you want a president that's going to make America healthy again?

I Come to you today as a former Democrat. I will be a first time Trump voter tonight.

The people dreamed this country, and it's the people who are making America great again.
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Credits

""Closing Ad 2"," Trump, 2024

From Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2012.
www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2024/closing-ad-2 (accessed December 21, 2024).

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Introduction

"The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."
—Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson, 1956

"Television is no gimmick, and nobody will ever be elected to major office again without presenting themselves well on it."
—Television producer and Nixon campaign consultant Roger Ailes, 1968

In a media-saturated environment where news, opinions, and entertainment surround us all day on our TV, computer, and cell phone screens, the only medium where presidential candidates still have complete control over their images is the paid commercial. Commercials use the tools of fiction filmmaking, including script, visuals, editing, and performance, to distill a candidate's major campaign themes to a few powerful images. Ads elicit emotional reactions, inspiring support for a candidate or raising doubts about the opponent. While commercials reflect the styles and techniques of the times in which they were made, the fundamental strategies and messages have tended to remain the same over the years.

The Living Room Candidate contains more than 450 commercials, from every presidential election since 1952, when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced Dwight Eisenhower that short ads during such popular TV programs as I Love Lucy would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run.

The 2020 edition of The Living Room Candidate has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.