Election Commerical Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Election Commerical - Research Paper Example The narrator repeats the words â€Å"strength†, â€Å"restraint†, and â€Å"leadership† as he introduces Reagan to the viewers, and juxtaposes Reagan with President Carter in order to show a contrast in their policies. â€Å"Peace is lost when such strength disappears,† says Reagan, as he goes on to describe his perspective on negotiating with the Soviet Union, and finally claims that â€Å"hope, confidence, and facts† are at the heart of his strategy. â€Å"The time is now,† concludes the narrator. â€Å"Reagan for president.† The feeling the video gives is split. In the opening sequence, it shows images of worrying foreigners, while the narrator speaks ominously over the droning of an air raid siren. The viewer comes to feel a sense of concern as the narrator repeats the word â€Å"slowly† while naming off conflicts that the US has been involved in, starting with Korea. It then shifts focus, using a condemning tone while menti oned countries where Carter’s foreign policy has be ineffective—â€Å"Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.† This shift in focus does not outwardly suggest that Carter is to blame for the Iranian hostage crisis, nor that he will lead the US into another war. However, it surely invites the viewer to make that connection based on the flow from describing future risks to the current leader’s shortcomings. The video then transitions into a scene of Ronald Reagan giving a speech, then a television interview. This is where the mood splits, and suddenly the video presents confidence and reassurance, indicating that Reagan is the man with the answers to the problems that Carter presents. The Reagan half uses live quotations and conveys future hope and strategies, focusing on Reagan as the answer. The context of this video is a chaotic political environment, where President Jimmy Carter, the incumbent, was mired in the details and faced with a critical opponent who w as quite aware of all his faults. Ronald Reagan was the two-term governor of California and former actor who faced-off against Carter in 1980. He had a fiscal reputation that would give him great appeal during the inflation problems of the time, but also used his charisma as an actor to be a confident, strong, and effective speaker who could engage listeners and convey his messages with success. While the economic issues were forefront in this election, and his plans for dealing with them well-developed, the Iranian-hostage crisis unexpectedly dominated public opinion as 53 Americans were held in captivity over the course of a year in the American embassy in Teheran. Possibly increasing the strength of his ballot, Reagan selected UN Ambassador George H.W. Bush as his running mate, and the focus of the race shifted greatly to what the Reagan-Bush ticket could do for America’s relations abroad. What was most important in 1980 was indeed US foreign policy, and this is the primar y area where Carter experienced stress and criticism. Carter’s approach to foreign policy was humble and restrained, which may have been perceived as weak by some. This perception of weakness increased during the Iranian hostage crisis. Carter staged a failed rescue attempt of Americans held hostage in Teheran in April of 1980, and as a result, Americans at home grew frustrated. Elizabeth drew is quoted in a description of the political atmosphere as saying "Fairly or not, [the hostage crisis] came to symbolize the question of whether Carter was a leader, whether he was competent, whether he was strong." The issue of who could keep the peace and who was likely to let it slip away caused the election to be very close by October 1980 (Jimmy). The Iranian hostage crisis led to a severing of relations between the United States and the newly formed Islamic Republic of