The best commercial of the 2016 presidential campaign started running on Friday. Set to the classic Simon and Garfunkel song “America,” the 60-second spot for Bernie Sanders evokes optimism and a sense of purpose. A dejected Hillary Clinton supporter told me a few days ago that this ad will win the Iowa caucuses for Sanders.

I don’t know about that, but “America” is so superb that I was inspired to compare its style and substance to one of the most famous presidential campaign ads of the 20th century. This 60-second spot for Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign was originally called “Prouder, Stronger, Better” but is better-known as “Morning in America” because of its memorable opening metaphor: “It’s morning again in America.”

For those who haven’t seen it, here is “America,” one of several Sanders ads now in heavy rotation in Iowa and New Hampshire. The Sanders campaign has been running good commercials for months, but this one’s the best so far.

The ad has no voice-over and few words other than the song lyrics.

While Simon and Garfunkel hum the song’s intro, the viewer sees a series of happy images, changing in time with the beat: a farm building with an American flag painted on, wind turbines turning in the background; an old-fashioned “main street” building with an American flag flying outside; fishing boats anchored next to a dock, also with a flag visible; a mother being hugged by her daughter, both smiling; two farmers doing chores in a barn (they are stars of a different Sanders ad now running in Iowa); the skyline of downtown Des Moines, with Iowa and American flags visible; young people working at computer screens; a young person serving a young customer in a coffee shop; a man and a woman talking over coffee, with laptops open; a young couple sitting at the kitchen table with their baby between them; a man walking down the street with his tween or early teen daughter; the Iowa farmers getting more hay.

While the ad plays the song lyrics “Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together,” the viewer sees a middle-aged couple dancing at a summer parade, with a Bernie for president sign and the candidate’s supporters in the background; a group of young people, some holding Bernie signs, attentively listening to Sanders at a rally; Sanders smiling and talking with supporters at an outdoor event while an American flag flies in the background (I think that may be the back yard of David Johnson, the 2014 Democratic candidate for Iowa House district 73); Sanders talking to a supporter at an indoor event; a large group of cheering young people holding official Sanders campaign signs as well as home-made signs spelling out WE LOVE BERNIE, with an American flag visible in the background; Sanders staffers high-fiving people waiting in line before a campaign event.

As the song continues “I’ve got some real estate here in my bag,” the viewer sees an adorable child carrying a lamb while the father leaves hay for sheep in a pasture; more footage of the child’s parents doing farm chores and walking with the child while sheep roam in the background; then Sanders shaking hands with young people trying to get close to him (in the background you can see a crowded high school gymnasium).

As the song skips to a more uplifting passage near its climax, “Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike,” the viewer can also hear cheering crowds in the background as images appear of Sanders and his wife Jane walking past supporters on their way into an event; people yelling and clapping and waving Bernie signs as Sanders stands at a podium, speaking to a packed house where an enormous American flag hangs in the background.

As Simon and Garfunkel sing “They’ve all come to look for America,” the viewer sees those words in block capitals on screen while hundreds and hundreds of faces of Sanders supporters flash by. Then footage rolls of Sanders speaking at a large outdoor rally next to a waterfront, with another large American flag in the background. The viewer can’t hear what Sanders has said but can hear the crowd cheering while many start waving Bernie signs.

As Simon and Garfunkel repeat, “All come to look for America,” the viewer can hear more crowd cheers and sees images of Sanders shaking hands with supporters, hugging a supporter, walking a parade route with his wife and two grandchildren, and speaking to a huge rally while people whoop and applaud and wave signs.

The final image is of a smiling Sanders at a podium, young supporters cheering in the background, as the candidate’s voice says “I’m Bernie Sanders, and I approve this message.”

Using crowd scenes to create a bandwagon effect for your candidate is a tried and true political ad tactic, but I have rarely seen it executed as well as in “America.” Sanders can project some negative energy during his stump speech, which tends to be long on alarming statistics about inequality and the rigged political system, delivered in rapid-fire style with a strong New York accent. He speaks confidently but sometimes angrily, which doesn’t always translate well on television. Yet the Sanders depicted here is not the least bit downbeat. And those people inspired by his call for a political revolution? They don’t look enraged. They are happy warriors, cheering and high-fiving and jumping in the bleachers and literally dancing in the street.

While many political ads used canned, forgettable soaring music, this one uses a familiar and appealing song.

Hearing the key passages of “America” will likely bring back fond memories for voters old enough to remember Simon and Garfunkel when they were new artists. Polling has consistently shown that Sanders does worst against Hillary Clinton among that older generation of Democratic voters.

The commercial underscores a paradox of the Sanders campaign, which John Deeth mentioned at the Democratic bloggers’ roundtable in Cedar Rapids last week. Whereas Sanders is hyper-focused on a message about issues, a cult of personality has grown up around his candidacy. Voters may have heard or read that Sanders is drawing large crowds around the country, but seeing the images and hearing how audiences react to him communicates that immense appeal in a powerful way. If the key to effective advertising is connecting with the consumer/voter on an emotional level, “America” succeeds more than any ad I’ve seen for any other politician in a long time.

Now let’s turn to “Prouder, Stronger, Better,” from Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign.

My annotated transcript:

Generic, soothing music plays in the background. Male voice-over: It’s morning again in America. [The viewer sees a city skyline at dawn, a boat on the river in the foreground.]

Voice-over: Today, more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country’s history. [A man dressed for an office job shuts the door of a taxi and walks away on a busy urban street; a farmer on a tractor works in a field; a boy on a bicycle delivers newspapers on what looks like a suburban street; a man dressed in a suit waves to him and walks to his car.]

With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly two thousand families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. [Footage of a large home, then a man and his son carrying a rolled-up rug into their apparent new home; the mother and daughter follow close behind, and a beautiful rose bush is in the foreground of the yard.]

This afternoon, sixty-five hundred young men and women will be married. And with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. [Footage of a proud mother or grandmother dressed up for the special occasion; a bride and groom standing at the altar; a close-up of the smiling bride’s beautiful face; the bride and groom kissing, then leaving the church while their family and friends smile and cheer and throw rice; the happy bride embracing her mother or grandmother.]

It’s morning again in America. [Footage of the U.S. Capitol with an American flag flying in front.]

And, under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder, and stronger, and better. [Footage of several different people running American flags up a pole; children look up at the flag with expressions of awe, while the men raising the flags look happy and proud.]

Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago? [Image of a flag flying in a breeze takes up the whole screen.]

The music draws to a close, and the viewer sees President Reagan’s official portrait, with a flag in the background, against a black background. Words above his picture: PRESIDENT REAGAN Leadership That’s Working.

This ad’s much different tone reflects the fact that the candidate was an incumbent seeking re-election, while Sanders is an insurgent fighting the establishment of both parties. “America” tries to catch people up in the excitement of a mass movement for change, a community of like-minded citizens. Reagan’s ad conveys a subdued message: thank goodness, things are finally settling back to normal. Remember how awful it was in 1980? Now we can buy houses and get married and live our lives. The ordinary people in this spot appear as individuals or with close family members, but they are not part of any large group with a common purpose.

Visually, the ad has a slower pace with fewer edits, as was typical for most commercials of that era. The flag dominates the picture at the end but is not as prevalent in the other scenes as during the Sanders spot. The president himself is absent from the screen until the closing seconds, in contrast to the many images of Sanders interacting with supporters in “America.”

The reality of the Reagan economy didn’t resemble the vision presented here. Those caught up in the farm crisis or the decline of manufacturing were not experiencing the mid-1980s as “morning in America.” But as image-making goes, “Prouder, Stronger, Better” was a masterwork. That’s why it’s still taught in political communications classes more than three decades later.

I would not be surprised to see “America” become a long-remembered case study as well.

P.S.- My older siblings introduced me to Simon and Garfunkel during the 1970s, and watching the new Sanders ad brought back a fond memory from my early efforts to pass the music along to my children. While playing this song in the car, I struggled to answer my then seven-year-old son’s question: what did it mean when he said “They’ve all come to look for America”? It’s harder to explain you’d think.

UPDATE: It’s a waste of time to complain, as Greg Sargent did here, that the Sanders ad reveals an “unrealistic” theory of change, “given the structural realities of how our political system works and of the GOP grip on the House of Representatives.” Good campaign commercials don’t try to win a debate about how to enact policy. They strike an emotional chord with viewers.