Draft of Analysis

The campaign I’m going to focus on is the Reagan vs. Carter era. I watched multiple videos from each side and have noticed multiple strange things. The first thing I’m going to analyze is what they discuss in the commercials. In the first commercial I watched for President Carter stated "Vote for yourself, you don't have to for me, vote for your own interest." and then at the end it says "vote for your own well fare by voting democratic." That stands out to me because he is saying to pretty much do what you want, but reelect him. It is just very strange and contradictive. In the second commercial I watched for President Reagan it was talking about how a change was needed for the country and how President Carter was not good for the country and that Reagan would be a better candidate. What neither of these commercials accomplished was they didn’t state why they were the better candidate, they only talked about why the other candidate is the worse pick. The next commercial I watched for Carter really took me by surprise because it was talking about how he is a religious man and how he prays on a daily basis. Now a days presidential candidates try and avoid the topic of religion because it is a very controversial matter. I know today it is very controversial whether or not Obama is Muslim or not so obviously today they wouldn’t show a commercial based off of religion. The Reagan commercial that corresponded with it was really well in my opinion. He talked about how he would make a better America and how he would keep his promises. There was also an independent candidate during this time, John Anderson. Honestly I think his commercial was better than some of Reagan’s and Carter’s. It talked about his background and all that he has accomplished. Usually independent candidates don’t get very far because most people are either Republican or Democratic and don’t really keep an open mind about anything else. I’m not going to lie, I don’t know very much about independent parties either. But watching John Anderson’s commercial made me want to research more and to keep an open mind without letting my political views get in the way. Another commercial I watched for Jimmy Carter was absolutely terrible. It showed videos of people on the streets sating how they don’t like Reagan and just completely bashing him. That is not a way to get a message across. I know this has happened on both sides of the argument obviously and it’s wrong on both sides. Candidates need to stop bashing one another and actually start giving us reasons to vote for them. Tell us what they plan on doing, what their views are, how they are going to fix problems throughout our country, and why we should trust them. That brings me to the last commercial I watched for Reagan. His wife Nancy is talking and asks those same questions to Carter. She wants the cards laid all on the table which is what the citizens want as well. The reason I think she doesn’t say what Reagan will accomplish is because that is not her place to. That is his job to tell us all what he plans to do if he is elected president. The last commercial I watched for President Carter stated false claims about Reagan. It put words into his mouth that he didn’t say in that order. It even shows the clip of what Reagan said and you can clearly see that the video is chopped in the middle and it is not all one sentence. That is just very childish in my opinion and doesn’t need to happen. I think that everyone should be treated the way they want to be treated in any type of competition. And I also think that if an opponent attacks you in an unfair way, our instinct would be to attack them back. After all if you can’t take it then don’t dish it out. But in a situation like this, you would just need to be the bigger person and not stoop to their level.