The flood of advertisements for and against candidates at the local, state and national level has already begun. Whether attacking a political opponent, outlining a vision for leadership or celebrating a candidate’s achievements, political advertising seeps into email inboxes, news feeds and television screens. While Hillary Clinton’s team has charged ahead in the “air wars,” the Trump campaign—having recently announced it will invest heavily into digital marketing efforts to revamp its message and rebrand its polarizing candidate—has also launched its first general-election television ads. Interestingly enough, this tradition of political advertisement began at time similar to our own, when a GOP nominee for president, whose celebrity status made up for his lack of political experience, grappled with how to approach a new technology to break the Democratic dominance of the White House. In the summer of 1952, Dwight D.