I drove a lot today and was in the snow in traffic, so I had a lot of time to listen to listen to podcasts. The first thing I listened to was Joe Rogan’s podcast with Tulsi Gabbard and Jocko Willink. The second was the Meat Eater Podcast with Steve Rinella. Both podcasts talked about how political campaigns have changed over time. Rinella’s podcast contained interesting stories about Davy Crockett as a politician. Listening to those podcasts reminded me of the website of The Living Room Candidate.
The Living Room Candidate is part of a larger project called the Museum of the Moving Image. Visitors to The Living Room Candidate can watch the commercials of each campaign from both parties. A written transcription is supplied with every commercial. Each video provides an overview of the political landscape at the time of the campaigns. Visitors to the website can search for advertisements by election year, type of advertisement or by campaign issue.
The Living Room Candidate is a site that I use since 2008. Unfortunately, although the collection of videos has been updated, the site still depends on Flash. Fortunately, most videos are available on two YouTube channels. The playlist of the Museum of the Moving Image contains eleven videos. There is also this playlist compiled by Karen Zeller.
[Embed] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_B2gZCB85c [/ embed]
Applications for education
The Living Room Candidate has a great tool for students called The Living Room Candidate Ad Maker. The Ad Maker can be used by students to remix old ads, sound bites, and images to create new campaign commercials. The teacher page on the Living Room Candidate offers nine lesson plans to teach in the historical context of campaigns, analyzing campaign ads and creating new campaign ads.
