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The Mad Men Who Invented the Modern Political Attack Ad

Since 1964, Advertising Agencies Have Sold Presidential Candidates As If They Were Cars or Soap

By Robert Mann
April 12, 2016

On September 7, 1964, a 60-second TV ad changed American politics forever. A 3-year-old girl in a simple dress counted as she plucked daisy petals in a sun-dappled field. Her words were supplanted by a mission-control countdown followed by a massive nuclear blast in a classic mushroom shape. The message was clear if only implicit: Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was a genocidal maniac who threatened the world’s future. Two months later, President Lyndon Johnson won easily, and the emotional political …

Donald and Bernie, Meet Andrew Jackson

The Seventh President Stoked the Anti-Elitist Rancor That Is Now Engulfing the 2016 Election

By Harry Watson
March 28, 2016

We hear a lot about populism these days. Throughout this primary season, headlines across the country have proclaimed the successes of the “populist” contenders, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Without embracing the populist label, moreover, candidates in both parties had already adopted populist tactics by branding their opponents as tools of the “establishment.”

But what is populism, anyway? There is no easy answer, for “populism” describes a political style more than a specific set of ideas or policies, and most …

Running for President Takes a Stiff—and Clean-Shaven—Upper Lip

As Thomas Dewey Learned in His Race Against Harry Truman, You Can Lose by a Whisker

By Christopher Oldstone-Moore
January 26, 2016

In 1948, Emilie Spencer Deer, a solidly Republican woman from Ohio, announced to her family that she would vote for President Truman instead of the Republican candidate Thomas Dewey because she could not vote for a man with a mustache. She was neither foolish nor alone in her opinion. Educated and conscientious, she was, like other women of her day, simply reading the signs of what a good man looked like at the time. A clean-shaven man was team player, …

What the First First Couple Bequeathed America

George and Martha Washington’s Close Partnership Helped Them Through Rebellion, War, and Even the Presidency

By Flora Fraser
January 12, 2016

One of the most revealing spaces at Mount Vernon, George and Martha Washington’s home in Virginia, is a bare attic bedroom. Martha retreated here after George’s death in 1799. Without him, she would not occupy the elegant bedchamber they had so long shared. Grief made this tough, capable woman give up her will to live. She died, still in that attic retreat, a few years later.

Standing at the threshold of that little room, 10 years ago, I wondered at the …

The Great TV Debates That Forever Changed How Politics Was Covered

When ABC Brought William F. Buckley, Jr., and Gore Vidal Together, the Media Became More Interested in Heat Than Light

By George Merlis
December 1, 2015

In our defense, we were a bit desperate. It was 1968 and ABC News was starved for resources and significantly smaller than its rivals NBC and CBS. We had to do something, anything, to get noticed. I should know: I was ABC News’ director of public relations.

As the presidential nominating conventions loomed that year (Miami Beach for Republicans, Chicago for Democrats) ABC News executives came up with the novel idea of a nightly 90-minute highlight show instead of providing the …

Why Early 20th-Century Muckraker Lincoln Steffens Is a Man For Our Times

The New York Political Reporter Understood Political Corruption Was About a Warped System, Not Just Immoral Politicians

By Jon Grinspan
October 28, 2015

Voters are in a bad mood. Again. We are routinely (and justifiably) frustrated with our politicians, but “throwing the bums out” doesn’t seem to change much. And we are all bracing for another anger-pageant that will stomp through American life for the next 13 months until election day.

A forgotten moment in our history suggests that the way out of a bad political mood is not more rage, but a new political perspective. Around 1900, after years of anger at …

Are Presidential Debates Reality TV, Sunday Talk Show, Or Both?

The American Civic Rite Is Distinctive for Its Blend of Boisterous Theater and Genuine Substance

By Matthew Dallek
September 10, 2015

The first Republican presidential debate was a veritable blockbuster, with 24 million viewers tuning in last month. Its sequel next week at the Reagan Presidential Library in California may attract even more viewers curious about the large field of candidates and the possibility of a lively clash. But the more intriguing question is why were so many Americans in this age of digital communications willing to watch 10 men on a debate stage making mostly canned remarks, charges, and countercharges? …

Are Politics Making Americans Boring?

The World’s Most Diverse, Innovative, and Surprising Nation Is in Danger of Becoming Entirely Predictable

Sasha Obama, younger daughter of U.S. President Barack Obama, watches inaugural parade in Washington

By Gregory Rodriguez
June 23, 2014

America—arguably the world’s most diverse, innovative, and surprising nation—is becoming a lot more predictable. And boring.

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