The Living Room Candidate contains more than 300 commercials, from every presidential election since 1952, when Madison Avenue advertising executive Rosser Reeves convinced Dwight Eisenhower that short ads played during such popular TV programs as I Love Lucy would reach more voters than any other form of advertising. This innovation had a permanent effect on the way presidential campaigns are run.
Collection Principles. As noted under the “About” section of this exhibition’s home page, the 2008 edition of this site was made possible by a grant from the Verizon Foundation. Per the very thorough “Site Guide/Help” section, “The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2008 is an online exhibition presenting more than 300 television commercials from every election year since 1952, when the first campaign TV ads aired. The website will be updated through the 2008 election between John McCain and Barack Obama. The site includes a searchable database and features commentary, historical background, election results, and navigation organized by year, type of ad, and issue. There is a playlist feature that allows visitors to select, annotate, and share their own groups of ads, and to view playlists by guest contributors. Each selected commercial is accompanied by a list of related ads. There is a transcript for each ad and a feature that allows visitors to search the entire database by title and by words in the transcripts.” Commercials on the site may be accessed on the toolbar in six different ways: Election Year; Type of Commercial; Issue; Curator’s Choice; Playlists; and Search. The commercials are organized into types such as: Backfire, Biographical, Children, Commander in Chief, Documentary, Fear, and Real People. The “For Teachers” section on the toolbar provides 8 lesson plans complete with pdfs for those plans
Object Characteristics. To view video, you will need Adobe Flash Player 8 or above. Screen resolution: The site is optimized for 1024x768 or higher screen resolution, and works with all major Web browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. If you click on any still image, the video will begin to play in a viewer in the center of the screen. This viewer offers the following capabilities: Pause/Play Button; Full Screen Button; Connection Speed Button; Volume Button; Scrub Bar; Credits Button; Transcript Button; Share Button; Save Button; Related Commercials; and Related Playlists/Activities. There are also clear instructions for creating, managing, and sharing playlists of various commercials. A click on Election Year 2008 brings up the McCain vs. Obama election, complete with a summary of the election, a fixed image from a video of McCain , and two rows of jpeg thumbnails in “click to view video” flash format, divided into Democratic and Republican campaign ads. Note also the pdf format for the 8 teacher lesson plans provided on the site.
Metadata. This exhibition is replete with metadata at nearly every click of the mouse! The full list of support, staff, research, organizational support, producer and curator, to name just a few of those noted are listed in the “About” section. The Privacy and Copyright section has some of the most complete privacy policy statements I have seen on similar image exhibitions. The copyright information is also similarly complete and thorough in listing the site’s terms and conditions of use. The short descriptive summaries for various type ads are clear and lead directly into the video. For example, in the Backfire type of commercial, the thumbnail for a 2008 ad regarding the rapid decline on Wall Street, 
states “On September 15, the day of the Lehman Brothers bank collapse and a 500-point drop in the Dow Jones average, John McCain said at a campaign event that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." The Obama campaign seized on this instantly, releasing an ad the next day which repeats McCain's words several times.” Of particular interest are the Online Resources on the toolbar which provide a range of resources and links for further information on a wide range of topics including political commercials, politics and presidents, campaign websites, websites from prior campaigns going back to 1996, blogs and general resources.
states “On September 15, the day of the Lehman Brothers bank collapse and a 500-point drop in the Dow Jones average, John McCain said at a campaign event that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." The Obama campaign seized on this instantly, releasing an ad the next day which repeats McCain's words several times.” Of particular interest are the Online Resources on the toolbar which provide a range of resources and links for further information on a wide range of topics including political commercials, politics and presidents, campaign websites, websites from prior campaigns going back to 1996, blogs and general resources.Intended Audience. This exhibition is a current and up to date treasure trove for political junkies! But there is also a wealth of information for the folks who are interested in the history and development of video political campaign commercials. The site is not “academic” enough for a scholar to cite, but the various links are a good beginning for research in video on political campaigns.
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