America's Upbeat Mood

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knows how the new patriotism came on so quickly, or when and how it actually began . . . Well, wherever the new patriotism came from, there can be no gainsaying its arrival." Then in his remarkable pastiche of a peroration, he quoted country-and-western song lyrics ("Cuz the flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away"), recalled the Grenada invasion, the Olympics and his D-day anniversary visit to Normandy and told an anecdote about how the dying Ulysses S. Grant saluted a battle-scarred Union veteran ("as Grant's wife and the doctor wept").

In Reagan's campaign advertising, the theme of renewed national confidence is sounded more subtly and soothingly. "Americans are like any people," suggests Sociologist Lipset. "When they go to the doctor, no matter what is wrong with them, they want the doctor to tell them they're O.K." Last week the Reagan campaign bought 30 minutes of prime time on ABC, CBS, NBC and three large cable networks (total bill: $750,000) to air what may be the slickest, most ambitious political ad ever made. The centerpiece of the commercial was the 18-minute film used to introduce Reagan at the Republican Convention; the remainder consisted of highlights from his speech and footage of the delirious reception he received from the delegates. The film was studded with staged vignettes of American life: a smiling old couple, a wedding, a sunrise, a house under construction. Over one, an announcer says, "America's back." Explains Phil Dusenberry, a Madison Avenue creative director and Reagan advertising strategist: "That is what we have done in the past with Pepsi, to elicit a sense of feeling. It is a sense of optimism, a sense of patriotism."

Earlier this month, Geraldine Ferraro spoke contemptuously of Reagan's "selfconscious patriotism that's made on Madison Avenue." But the Democrats also are scrambling to embrace the potent symbolism of red-white-and-blue traditionalism. As Ferraro and Mondale paraded down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Labor Day morning, a brass band walked near by, playing Sousa marches. At the Democratic Convention in July, the San Francisco Girls and Boys Chorus sang America the Beautiful, This Land Is Your Land, while the delegate horde turned the convention floor into a blur of red, white and blue. Convention Guest Mark Green, co-author of There He Goes Again: Ronald Reagan's Reign of Error, confessed to an awkward moment: "At first I didn't want to wave a flag. But on the last night of the convention I was waving two of them." The party was demonstrating to itself and to the public that Democrats were no longer embarrassed by corny displays of national zeal. "I think that the Democratic Convention showed that we don't own the flag," said White House Pollster Richard Wirthlin during the G.O.P.'s gathering in Dallas. "I felt one of the most successful things was their ability to [evoke] traditional values, and that included not only patriotism, but family, neighborhood, the value of hard work—campaign themes we've used with a vengeance."

The Democrats have a grudging but intense awareness of the nation's new mood and its political importance. "This is a country that wants to believe in itself," says Mondale Pollster Peter Hart.