When Ronald Reagan was preparing to run for reelection in 1984, the White House assembled a handful of advertising execs from Madison Avenue. First Lady Nancy Reagan had disliked the “hard sells” the campaign had used four years earlier, and suggested they come up with something more lighthearted this time around. What they produced still remains arguably the most successful campaign spot since the advent of television. “Morning in America” powerfully depicted a bold, resurgent country that had put sluggish economic growth and global embarrassments behind it—thanks, of course, to President Reagan.

Three decades later, the Republican presidential candidates are still trying to recapture the magic. Both the Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz campaigns have launched “Morning in America” knockoffs in the last month, with the Florida senator making headlines this week when Buzzfeed discovered stock footage from the Vancouver skyline in the ad’s first panoramic shot. But that geographic goof-up is not why Rubio’s ad fails so miserably. It falls flat for the same reason that Cruz’s stab at “Morning in America” does: Even while aiming to recapture the uplift of the Reagan spot, these new versions slip into the dominant Republican mood in 2016—one that is far more dark night than sunny morning.

The original was brilliant in its simplicity. The historical moment had something to do with that: “Morning in America” debuted four years into a Republican presidency, when Reagan could claim credit for an improving economy. There’s no room for such expressions of confidence on the GOP side this year, particularly with the demonized Barack Obama occupying the White House. True, GDP is growing again, and unemployment has reached its lowest level in more than seven years—but if anyone gets credit for that, it’s Obama. And it would be heresy for a GOP candidate to admit that anything in America is on an upward swing today.

The Cruz campaign has rejiggered “Morning in America” to account for this altered political landscape. The resulting commercial, titled “Best to Come,” features similar idyllic images of American life—a farmer driving a tractor, a pitcher on a baseball diamond, a soldier heading off to war. “The best is still to come,” the narrator says. But at the same time, the ad veers sharply away from uplift, lamenting that under Obama, “America is beginning to fade.” Cruz’s refurbished “Morning in America” loses its power by bombarding voters with contradictory messages: concern about America and optimism for its future.

“Morning Again,” the ad released by Rubio this week, is even more convoluted. It sticks doggedly to the original script, only changing a few words—but those alterations generate some laughably awkward lines. The narrator of the original “Morning in America” memorably intoned that “this afternoon 6,500 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.”

