Democrat
Adlai Stevenson for president
John Sparkman for vice president
"You Never Had It So Good"
Speaking about the role of television advertising in election campaigns, Adlai Stevenson said, "I think the American people will be shocked by such contempt for their intelligence. This isn’t Ivory Soap versus Palmolive." Stevenson aide George Ball bitterly predicted that "presidential campaigns will eventually have professional actors as candidates."
Stevenson based his television strategy on a series of eighteen half-hour speeches that aired on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 10:30. The goal was to take advantage of Stevenson’s oratorical skills and build his national recognition by developing a regular audience for the broadcasts. But the lateness of the time slot cut down on the number of potential viewers, and the actual audience consisted largely of people already predisposed to vote for Stevenson.
Stevenson’s spot ads were little more than illustrated radio spots. The crude visuals generally consisted of a single shot, such as the simple cartoon drawing that illustrates the Ike and Bob ad, which implied that an Eisenhower presidency would be under the control of conservative Republican Robert Taft. Rather than defend the Truman administration, the ads attempted to distance Stevenson from it. Several of them reminded voters of how bad things were during the Depression, presided over by the last Republican president, Herbert Hoover.
Stevenson never warmed up to the medium during the campaign. He refused to appear in his own spots, and his speeches, which were aired live, frequently ran too long; the broadcast would fade out while he was still talking. In his election-eve special, when his son tells him, "I like watching television better than being on it," Stevenson replies, "I guess that goes for all of us, doesn’t it?"