[icon color=»Accent-Color» size=»regular» image=»steadysets-icon-chat»] Contexto
Spot de la Campaña de George McGovern durante las elecciones de 1972. Una elección marcada por el radicalismo político generado en torno a la guerra de Vietnam. El mensaje de McGovern estaba dirigido a acabar la guerra en Vietnam y reducir el presupuesto militar de los Estados Unidos. Eso lo convirtió en el candidato a la presidencia con un discurso más de izquierda en toda la historia. McGovern alcanzó la nominación Demócrata después de una primaria en la que participaron 10 precandidatos, experiencia que dio inicio al sistema de nominación actual. Curiosamente la campaña de Nixon presentó a McGovern como un radical. El slogan de campaña era “McGovern, demócrata para la gente”. Los spot de campaña tenían rasgos visuales de populismo. Mostraban al candidato en encuentros informales con los ciudadanos en fábricas, hospitales y ancianatos. Las piezas fueron desarrolladas por el cineasta Charles Guggenheim que ya había desarrollado en el pasado los de la campaña de Adlai Stevenson. La estrategia era mostrar a McGovern cercano a la gente de desacartonado. La campaña no supo reaccionar a tiempo a los ataques de la campaña de Nixon y estos terminaron por minar la reputación de McGovern ante la opinión norteamericana. Aunque, a decir verdad, la campaña demócrata cometió varios errores. Nombró, por ejemplo, como formula vicepresidencial al senador Thomas Eagleton de Missouri. Al poco tiempo se supo que había estado hospitalizado por depresión y había recibido terapia eléctrica de choque. McGovern debió retirar la postulación y lo emplazo con Sargent Shriver, pero ya el daño estaba hecho, los republicanos comunicaron la ineptitud del demócrata. El mensaje que lo acabo estaba claro: el demócrata era un inepto radical que pretendía debilitar a Norteamérica y negociar una paz deshonrosa con Vietnam. Los spot de McGovern son discursos filmados, eso lo hace aburridos. El guión del spot que vemos es el siguiente: CHRIS JACKSON: I’m Chris Jackson. TOM GREENWOOD: Tom Greenwood, Milwaukee. McGOVERN: Good to see you. JOE SIMPSON: Joe Simpson, Battle Creek, Michigan. McGOVERN: Joe, were you with the Third Marines division? JOE SIMPSON: No, I was with the… McGOVERN: I had a son-in-law who… NARRADOR: Most of them were still safe in grade school when this man first spoke out against the war, risking political suicide in the hope they might be spared. For them, his early voice is now being heard too late. If the shooting stopped tomorrow, they would still have to face the long road back, rebuilding shattered lives and broken dreams. And they’re looking for all the help and understanding they can find. McGOVERN: …housing, transportation… JOVEN VETERANO #1: That parking lot down there – that’s especially for wheelchaired people. It’s got ice on the road. How far do you think you can get in – you can’t get studded snow tires on this thing! JOVEN VETERANO #2: The fact is, the veteran is returning home, and I think that they do need this help. We come home and we’ve got this lost feeling. You don’t know where to turn. You go to a contact officer, you go here, you go there… McGOVERN: You know, I benefited from the G.I. Bill of rights at the end of World War II. I was able to go to Northwestern University. I went through and got a PhD at the government’s expense. But I’d been a combat bomber pilot for three years, and a lot of the people I was with didn’t come back from that war, and I didn’t feel the government was giving me anything for nothing. I felt that I had earned that. Now, I’m going to recommend – and I’ll fight for it – that we give every veteran an opportunity to go on to advanced education. And the benefits will be generous enough so that they can afford to do that. Now if he didn’t want to take advantage of that opportunity, he should be given a guaranteed job, even though the government might have to come in. If we couldn’t find it in industry, we would provide public service employment. JOVEN VETERANO #1: There are jobs the government could offer us right now. There should be – they should be the ones that hire us first. They hire other people. There are people that have disabilities, stuck in these things, and they don’t want to be here. Some of them can’t use their arms and fingers, but that doesn’t make them a non-productive individual. McGOVERN: You love your country, there’s no question about that. But I bet you’re about halfway mad at it, aren’t you. JOVEN VETERANO #1: Believe me, when you lose the control of your bowels, your bladder – your sterility, you’ll never father a child – when the possibility of you ever walking again is cut off for the rest of your life, you’re 23 years old, you don’t want to be a burden on your family – you know where you go from here? To a nursing home. And you stay there until you rot. Why isn’t there places like this that the government could set up. Nobody thinks of a disabled veteran, or a disabled anybody, but another disabled person. If you fall out of your wheelchair, you know who’s the first one to come try to get you some help? A guy in a wheelchair. And not somebody who’s walking. McGOVERN: I think it’s one of the most unconscionable facts in this country today is what you’ve just said. That there are people who are desperately in need of help that can’t qualify for it under the present system. JOVEN VETERANO #1: To stay alive. McGOVERN: That’s right. I love the United States. But I love it enough so I want to see some change is made. The American people want to believe in their government. They want to believe in their country. And I want to be one of those that provides the kind of leadership that would help restore that kind of faith. I don’t think I can do it alone – of course I can’t – but the president can help set a new tone in this country. He can help raise the vision and the faith and the hope of the American people. And that’s what I’d like to try to do. JOVEN VETERANO #1: I’d like to get a president that we can believe in. McGOVERN: Well I hope I’ll be that kind of president. NARRADOR: McGovern. For the people. TEXTO EN PANTALLA: McGovern. NARRADOR: The people are paying for this campaign with their hard-earned dollars. Send what you can to McGovern for President, Washington, D.C.