Page 44 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

D

DAISY COMMERCIAL was a controversial television advertisement in Lyn-
don Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. The advertisement, produced by
Tony Schwartz, attacked Republican nominee Barry Goldwater by playing upon
the emotions regarding atomic warfare. Goldwater had said he would use nuclear
weapons in Vietnam to defoliate the forests, and Johnson had said he would
not.
The ad featured a fair-haired young girl smelling the daisies and counting off
the flower's petals. As she got closer to removing all the petals, a male voice
supersedes her voice and counts backward. The scene then switches to a blast
of a nuclear weapon.
Amid the mushroom cloud of the nuclear weapon, Johnson's voice says,
"These are the stakes—to make a world in which all God's children can live
or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die."
The ad ran only once, on September 7. Viewers phoned in their protests, and
over the next few days the ad was the most talked-about aspect of the campaign.
A formal complaint from Goldwater's staff was filed with the Fair Campaign
Practices Committee, but it never made a determination about the ad. The truth-
fulness of the ad is questionable, but the emotional impact is not. It helped to
paint Goldwater as a warmonger who could not be trusted.
SOURCES: Edwin Diamond and Stephen Bats, The Spot, 1992; Joanna Morreale, The
Presidential Campaign Film: A Critical History, 1993; L. Patrick, "An Analysis of
Presidential TV Commercials," in Lynda Lee Kaid, Dan Nimmo, and Keith Sanders,
eds., New Perspectives on Political Advertising, 1986.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

DAMAGE CONTROL. Communication efforts by political consultants, spin
doctors, and public relations practitioners to try to limit the harm done by a