Never Aired 1976 Gerald Ford Ad Too Emotionally Charged for Its Time
While thinking about how last minute events like Hurricane Sandy, speeches and political commercials might influence the outcome of the 2012 election, I recalled hearing about one chilling commercial of 1976, never aired, that might conceivably (along with so many other factors) have changed the result of that year's Presidential race between President Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, one of the closest in American history.
By courtesy of the Ford Presidential Library, I've viewed it and found it emotionally powerful. I think it would have been even more affecting, had it aired as planned, in that national atmosphere 13 years after President Kennedy's murder and in the immediate wake of America's traumas over Vietnam, urban riots, campus demonstrations and Watergate. Especially since it advertises a President not known for his emotional appeal, the commercial does an impressive job of presenting, on an emotional level, the best case for Ford's election -- that he had healed a ravaged country.
Late in his 1976 campaign, Ford's media team produced the 5-minute commercial that shows Ford (who had survived two near-miss assassination attempts) giving a speech. A cherry bomb goes off, the President clearly presumes it is an assassin firing, and flinches. In the following scenes, we see Ford parading through Dallas in a motorcade similar to John Kennedy's fatal caravan of 1963. "Neither the cherry bombs of a misguided prankster nor all the memories of recent years can keep people and their President apart," says the narrator. "When a limousine can parade openly through the streets of Dallas, there's a change that's come over America."
...
Memories of the Kennedy murder -- and of Ford's close calls -- were too recent. Some on Ford's team feared that the spot would harm the campaign in Texas. The Secret Service would also have been right to worry that the film might incite a third assassin to assault the President. The commercial was kept in the vault and never aired.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/11/never-aired-ford-campaign-ad-considered-too-emotionally-charged-for-time.html
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"When the president can ride thru Dallas in an open car..."
What a messed up sentiment only 13 years after the assassination. 
Very 70s. 
But aside from the candid GOP admission of "after a decade of tension" (the acknowledgment of GOP failure), the theme seemed to be aiming away from the tarnish of the Nixon resignation after Watergate, and towards what Raygun would eventually use in his 2nd term - the "better days are just around the corner" theme.
Ironically, they tried to make the commercial appear that the GOP message embraced "diversity" with carefully placed African Americans sprinkled throughout.... 
Equal doses of interesting, amusing and WTF- all at the same time.
PB
Granted, I was young (born in 65) but I had flash backs 
especially the color tones and audio quality of TV broadcasts, how people dressed, and the muted tones.
To invoke the JFK assassination by a member of the Warren Commission cover-up team...
