University of Virginia Center for Politics

The political ad "Peace Little Girl" aired during the 1964 presidential campaign ushered in a new era of the television attack ad. The campaign also reshaped the American political landscape in other significant ways ultimately ending up with the establishment of the contemporary geopolitical map of red and blue states. Includes interviews with historians and participants in the campaign.

A project of the UVA Center for Politics and Community Idea Stations, "Ball of Confusion" is a one-hour documentary that examines the 1968 presidential contest in the context of a difficult and contentious year in American history. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, racial unrest, nationwide riots, and a continuing war in Vietnam put the nation on edge and produced a historic three-way presidential election. Through archival footage and compelling interviews, the film shows how the election was influenced by the fractures in the United States' social and political foundations, leaving deep scars that would affect generations to come.

Explores the presidential race between incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford and Democratic candidate and Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, who stepped onto the national stage touting his outsider status. Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, the anti-establishment mood surging through the country, Carter's primary strategy and the challenge to Ford by Ronald Reagan are discussed.