Copycats Beware: Morning in America Can't be Replicated

A conservative group, Citizens for the Republic, misses the mark when it evokes the Reagan era with a 60-second commercial dubbed "Mourning in America," a gloomy recitation of economic ills set to funereal music.

The original "Morning in America" ads that helped secure President Reagan's 49-state victory in 1984 were as uplifting as a Norman Rockwell painting, and they portrayed an America that was more mythical than real, which is why they were so successful. I was covering the White House then, and when the advertising team hired to produce the ads held a screening for top aides in a conference room in the Old Executive Office Building, the president himself popped in to announce, "I understand you're all here selling soap," Reagan said. "I thought you'd like to see the bar."

The anecdote appears in the Newsweek published after the election, and it captures Reagan's sensibility as a former actor about what it takes to woo an audience, or win votes. He was the commodity so artfully presented by close aide Michael Deaver, the protector of the Reagan image, who took political advertising to a whole new level. Indeed, as Newsweek recounted, there was some resistance inside the campaign as to whether hiring a Madison Avenue advertising agency was the right approach. In the end, they assembled a group that dubbed itself the Tuesday Team, Election Day being a Tuesday, and it drew from all the top agencies, putting together an all-star lineup that produced spots with titles like "Statue of Liberty" and the iconic "Morning Again in America."

After Reagan viewed the spots, which painted the picture of an idyllic country, he characteristically shared the credit with "the fellas," his top aides, saying he couldn't have done all that alone, and later asking, "Am I really that good?"

The answer to that varies depending on your political leanings, but the ads were certainly that good.

Reagan was about optimism, and even when he trashed the other fella, he did it with a sense of grace and style that today's conservatives cannot match. Of course, it was a different time, and Reagan was running for re-election at a time of peace and prosperity. He could take an above-the-battle pose, identifying with all that is right and good with America, leaving his opponent, Walter Mondale, looking almost un-American should he attack Reagan, which was the point.

In the book that is an expanded version of Newsweek's coverage of the election, "The Quest for the Presidency 1984," various campaign documents that spell out each side's strategy are included. Presidential aide Richard Darman urged a positive campaign: "Paint RR as the personification of all that is right with, or heroized by, America. Leave Mondale in a position where an attack on Reagan is tantamount to an attack on America's idealized image of itself -- where a vote against Reagan is, in some subliminal sense, a vote against a mythic AMERICA," which Darman had in all caps.

Those who toss around the phrase, Morning in America, or try to model a campaign in its image, should understand what they're up against. Today's conservatives can borrow the idea but the result falls so far short, I wonder why they bother.