Living Room Candidate

Just heard about a really interesting site showing presidential campaign commercials for every election since 1952.

Haven't finished watching them all yet, but finding it hard to pull myself away from the computer screen... but I have to do the dishes before Tomoe gets home... it's a real situation I have gotten myself into.

There is an equally interesting interview about this on NPR's Fresh Air. (there is no direct link to the show, so go to Fresh air, and search for the July 29 show.

His new show at The American Museum of the Moving Image is called "The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2004". Schwartz is the chief curator of film at the museum. He'll talk about the history of political commercials from their inception in 1952 to the present.

Of course, here in Japan, we don't see the current campaign commercials, and we are obviously better off for it. What amazes me, is that this stuff is so much crap, and everyone knows it (I assume) yet somehow intelligent people are persuaded by it.

Why is that?