1972 Presidential Campaign Commercials

The Coronation vs. The Crusade: 1972 Presidential Campaign Commercials

By 1972, the chaotic energy of the 1960s had not so much dissipated as it had curdled. The 1972 presidential campaign commercials reflect a nation that was tired—tired of war, tired of riots, and perhaps most of all, tired of surprises.

The election between President Richard Nixon and Senator George McGovern was less a contest of ideas and more a collision of two distinct realities. On one screen, voters saw the smooth, almost imperial competence of an incumbent at the height of his power. On the other, they saw the ragged, earnest desperation of an insurgent movement trying to save the soul of the country.

As you view the 1972 presidential campaign commercials linked above, you will notice that the “attack ad” ferocity of 1964 and 1968 is largely absent. In its place is a study in contrast: a well-oiled machine running against a grassroots crusade.

The Incumbent: The “Rose Garden” Strategy

Richard Nixon’s 1972 media campaign remains the gold standard for the “Rose Garden” strategy—the art of campaigning by appearing too busy being President to actually campaign.

The 1972 presidential campaign commercials for the President are devoid of the sweat and grit of his previous runs. You will not see Nixon pleading for votes. Instead, you will see Nixon in China, Nixon in Russia, and Nixon signing treaties. The Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) had a virtually unlimited budget, and they used it to produce mini-documentaries that portrayed the President not as a politician, but as a global statesman.

The visual language is calm, authoritative, and distant. The campaign realized that the best way to defeat McGovern—who was painted as a radical leftist—was not to engage him in a street fight, but to ignore him. Nixon’s ads suggest that while the Democrats were bickering, the President was building a “Generation of Peace.” It was a coronation masquerading as an election.

The Challenger: Right from the Start?

If Nixon’s ads were a lecture on stability, George McGovern’s ads were a plea for morality. The South Dakota Senator ran as the anti-war conscience of the nation, and his commercials reflect the raw, unpolished aesthetic of the counterculture that supported him.

McGovern’s media team faced an impossible uphill battle. They had to introduce a prairie populist to a skeptical public while simultaneously defending him against charges of “Amnesty, Abortion, and Acid.” Consequently, the 1972 presidential campaign commercials for the Democrats often feel reactive. They spend significant airtime trying to explain McGovern’s character, showing him in casual settings, talking to workers in diners and factories, trying to bridge the gap between his “radical” label and his traditional background.

The chaos of the Democratic campaign—including the disastrous replacement of his Vice Presidential running mate, Thomas Eagleton—bled into the advertising. The messaging shifts rapidly from bio-pics to attacks on the Watergate break-in (which voters largely ignored at the time) to somber reflections on Vietnam. It is the sound of a campaign searching for a frequency that the American public had already tuned out.

The Professionalization of the Presidency

What makes the 1972 election critical to study is the sheer gap in professionalism. This was the year the “permanent campaign” truly took hold. Nixon’s team didn’t just buy airtime; they bought a narrative. They used polling data to micromanage every frame of film, ensuring that no unscripted moment ever reached the viewer.

In contrast, the McGovern ads feel almost quaint in their honesty. They relied on the belief that if voters simply knew the truth about the war and the economy, they would vote for change. Nixon’s landslide victory proved otherwise: when given the choice between uncomfortable truths and comfortable certainty, the electorate chose the latter.

We invite you to explore these two very different 1972 presidential campaign ad styles. One shows how a President secured a landslide; the other shows how a movement lost a nation.

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