In presidential campaigns, it’s common to blast your opponent. Heck, even Vice Presidential nominees are fair game. But not so often in presidential campaigns do we come across an attack ad that features the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
In this 1980 attack ad produced by the RNC on the Democratic party, an actor, who largely resembles former Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill Jr., stubbornly drives past gas stations while a man in the passenger seat repeatedly warns him that he will run out of gas. Eventually, the car breaks down in the middle of a freeway and the actor resembling O’Neill storms out in a worried frenzy. The ad ends the narrator explains, “The Democrats are out of gas. Vote Republican. For a change.”
An attack on an entire party is a risky move by any politician. However, under Democratic leadership in the latter half of the 1970s, the United States experienced low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates, and energy crises. The Iran hostage crisis in November 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 also contributed to a national sense of melancholy and a panicked perception that in both domestic and foreign affairs, the nation was headed downhill.
With the help of the RNC, Reagan won the election, winning a whopping 489 electoral votes against Carter’s 49.
Did You Know? While Reagan mocked O’Neill to help get himself into the White House, O’Neill remained Speaker of the House even under Reagan’s administration. With the Republicans winning majority in the 1980 Senate as well as the Presidency, O’Neill became the main Democratic opposition leader.
The relationship between Reagan and O’Neill goes down in history as one of the most enigmatic. Even though the two admitted to being friends outside of the political realm, this did not stop them from taking dirty jabs at one another.
O’Neill has been quoted calling Reagan "the most ignorant man who had ever occupied the White House." And rumor has it that O’Neill sent him a Valentine’s Day card with a bleeding heart.
Reagan also had some mean jabs, comparing O’Neill to the classic arcade game Pac-Man on the basis that O’Neill was also a “a round thing that gobbles up money.”