Candidate (Calculated) Merchandising

[MARV]

In the wake of the high-tech extravaganzas that were the Democratic and Republican conventions, and the lavishly produced docu-biographies of the candidates and their spouses, it is sobering to look back at the first Presidential campaign commercials before Madison Ave. got its mojo working. An online exhibition, <a href="http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/">The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2004</a> (sponsored by the <a href="http://www.movingimage.us/site/about/index.html">Museum of the Moving Image</a>), offers a greatest hits sampling of many of these "innocent" advertisements over the past six decades that transformed stump candidates into media personalities.