Carolyn Kaster/AP
On the eve of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has released a new web ad harkening back to an iconic political ad from the 1960s—it even stars the same actor.
The new ad is designed as a sequel to a famous ad from the 1964 election between President Lyndon Johnson and conservative Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater. During that race, the Democratic National Committee released an ad titled “Confessions of a Republican,” in which a GOP voter, played by actor Bill Bogert (who was also a registered Republican), explains why, as a lifelong Republican, he is planning to vote against Goldwater.
In the original ad, Bogert sits in a chair and talks directly to the camera. “This man scares me,” he says. “So many men with strange ideas are working for Goldwater.” At the end of the ad, he says, “I think my party made a bad mistake in San Francisco”—the site of the ’64 GOP convention—”and I’m going to have to vote against that mistake in November.”
The Clinton campaign’s new ad features Bogert delivering the same message. “This man scares me,” Bogert says. “Trump says we need unpredictability when it comes to using nuclear weapons…When a man says that, he sounds a lot like a threat to humanity.” Bogert ends this ad on the same note he ended the last one. He says, “I think the party is about to make a terrible mistake in Cleveland and I’m going to have to vote against that mistake on the 8th of November.”
