It seems hard to imagine a time when television wasn’t used as a political platform. This from BoingBoing
Earliest campaign commercials: Disney for Eisenhower
From the Sociological Images blog: “Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first presidential candidate to use television commercials. Below is one of his commercials, made by Disney, from 1952. Eisenhower was skeptical about using television and his opponent, Stevenson, wouldn’t appear on television because he thought it demeaning to a man ascending to the presidency. Eisenhower won.” Link
One Comment
Looking at that makes one think that we/the world was awfully innocent back in 1952 (nevermind having just waded through 2 world wars, korean war, the holocaust and other pleasures), and people were really child-like or that we have really grown into a rather brutish “adulthood” in which the slime of politics is more vulgar than ever, though for the most part just as infantile. Now its all about poopoo and sandpile eye gouging. Alas.