1972 McGovern-Shriver Presidential Campaign Commercials
The Cinema of Truth: The 1972 McGovern-Shriver Presidential Campaign Commercials
If the 1972 election was a collision between a machine and a movement, the 1972 McGovern-Shriver Presidential campaign commercials represent the desperate, noble, and ultimately doomed effort of the movement to explain itself.
While the Nixon campaign was running polished, high-gloss productions that looked like newsreels, Senator George McGovern’s campaign took a radical risk. They bet everything on the idea that if you simply showed the American people the unvarnished truth—about the war, the economy, and the candidate—the truth would set them free.
As you explore the archive on this page, you will see a distinct lack of artifice. These commercials, largely produced by the legendary documentarian Charles Guggenheim, reject the slick editing of traditional advertising. Instead, they utilize a technique known as cinéma vérité. The camera is handheld. The lighting is natural. The candidate is rarely looking at the lens. The result is a collection of videos that feel less like advertisements and more like intimate portraits of a man trying to save the soul of his country.
The “Listening” Candidate: Veterans and Workers
The most defining characteristic of the 1972 McGovern-Shriver Presidential campaign commercials is silence. In an era where politicians were expected to shout, George McGovern was filmed listening.
The most powerful example of this is the commercial often titled “Veterans in Hospital.” In this spot, there is no voiceover, no dramatic music, and no slogan. The camera simply observes McGovern sitting at the bedside of a paralyzed Vietnam veteran. The soldier speaks with heartbreaking candor: “They wanted us to play war… we’re broken soldiers… don’t throw us away.”
McGovern says almost nothing. He simply absorbs the pain. This was a revolutionary approach to political media. It positioned McGovern not as a Commander-in-Chief who issued orders, but as a “Healer-in-Chief” who bore witness to the consequences of those orders. It was an attempt to bypass the political brain of the voter and aim directly for the heart.
This technique was repeated in the “Welfare” (or “Factory Worker”) spots. Here, McGovern is shown surrounded by skeptical blue-collar men. They challenge him on his controversial “Demogrant” proposal (the $1,000 dividend plan). McGovern doesn’t offer a soundbite; he engages in a nuanced conversation about tax loopholes and economic fairness. While intellectually honest, these ads often highlighted the complexity of his policies rather than simplifying them, a fatal flaw when running against the simple slogans of the Nixon machine.
The “Credibility Gap” and the Crawling Text
By the fall of 1972, the McGovern campaign realized that the “nice guy” approach was not denting Nixon’s lead. They needed to go on the offensive. The result was a series of stark, brutal commercials often referred to as the “Newspapers” or “Crawling Text” ads.
In the spot titled “Great Problems in Leadership,” the screen is black. White text crawls upward, listing the scandals of the Nixon administration: The Wheat Deal, the ITT Affair, and the Watergate Bugging. A mechanical, teletype sound effect plays in the background. The narrator’s voice is urgent, warning that these are not isolated incidents but evidence of a corrupt system.
These ads were eerily prescient. At the time, they were dismissed by many voters as desperate mudslinging. In retrospect, they serve as a chilling prophecy of the Watergate scandal that would consume the Nixon presidency just two years later. They remain some of the most text-heavy, information-dense commercials ever aired in a presidential race, relying on the voter’s willingness to read and think—a gamble that rarely pays off in American politics.
The Tony Schwartz Effect: “Voting Booth”
While Guggenheim handled the documentary footage, the campaign also brought in Tony Schwartz, the audio genius behind LBJ’s 1964 “Daisy” ad, to handle the psychological warfare.
His masterpiece for 1972 was the “Voting Booth” commercial. It is a spot that takes place entirely inside the mind of a voter. We see no images of the candidates, just a voting lever. We hear a man’s internal monologue as he hesitates. He admits his friends are voting for Nixon. He admits he’s worried. But then, he reasons his way to the Democratic ticket: “I have a gut feeling… it’s just possible McGovern’s straight.”
This ad was brilliant because it didn’t try to sell McGovern as a savior; it sold him as the honest alternative. It acknowledged the voter’s hesitation and validated their doubts, using “resonance” to connect with the millions of Americans who felt trapped between a radical Democrat and a corrupt Republican.
“Tanya” and the Moral Argument
No discussion of the 1972 McGovern-Shriver Presidential campaign commercials is complete without mentioning “Tanya.”
In this spot, McGovern speaks about a young orphan girl in South Vietnam. It is a direct appeal to the conscience of the nation. He argues that the bombing campaigns are not abstract military strategies but direct violence against children. “This is Tanya,” he says, forcing the viewer to confront the human cost of “Peace with Honor.”
It was a risky, polarizing ad. For anti-war activists, it was a rallying cry. For the “Silent Majority,” it felt like an accusation—a suggestion that their country was immoral. It encapsulated the central struggle of the McGovern campaign: the difficulty of criticizing a war without alienating the patriotism of the people fighting it.
Sargent Shriver: The Happy Warrior
Late in the campaign, after the disastrous departure of Thomas Eagleton from the ticket, Sargent Shriver (brother-in-law to JFK) joined as the Vice Presidential nominee. The ads featuring Shriver brought a much-needed injection of Kennedy-esque energy.
In spots like “Shriver on the Stump,” we see him with his shirt sleeves rolled up, shouting passionately to cheering crowds. These commercials were designed to counter the narrative that the Democratic ticket was depressing or defeatist. They tried to remind voters of the optimism of 1960, linking McGovern’s crusade to the unfinished business of the New Frontier.
Why The 1972 McGovern-Shriver Campaign Commercials Matters
The 1972 campaign is often studied as a failure of messaging. McGovern was defined by his opponent before he could define himself. However, the 1972 McGovern-Shriver Presidential campaign commercials remain a high-water mark for authenticity in politics.
They refused to treat the voter as a consumer to be manipulated. They treated the voter as a citizen to be engaged. As you watch these videos, you are seeing a campaign that believed—perhaps naively—that if you just turned on the camera and told the truth, the people would follow.
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