The Things That Astound The Washington Post
Posted by John Pegway | Posted in Washington Post, Washington, DC | Posted on 30-06-2008
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In today’s Post, Bob Kaiser’s focus on focus groups and Peter Hart has this adorable nugget:
Hart reported these reactions to the Mondale campaign, which quickly produced a new television commercial featuring a red telephone with a flashing orange light. A narrator intoned:
“The most awesome, powerful responsibility in the world lies in the hand that picks up this phone. The idea of an unsure, unsteady, untested hand is something to really think about. This is the issue of our times. On March 20, vote as if the future of the world is at stake. Mondale. This president will know what he’s doing. And that’s the difference between Gary Hart and Walter Mondale.”
Mondale won in Georgia, and kept this ad on the air in all the states that later held primaries. “The Hart people never had an answer to it,” Peter Hart recalls.
(Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, that 1984 Mondale commercial can be seen by going to www.youtube.com and searching for “Mondale Video 10.”) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fu-2Ew1ijg .
Ah yes, the “wonders of YouTube,” that mystifying sorcery device we find on our Google machines.
Too intimated to search “Mondale Video 10″? You can also magically find it by searching “Walter Mondale Phone Ad 1984.” And even “I’m with Bob Kaiser, YouTube is amazing Mondale 1984 ad phone.”
Will wonders never cease?