Jacob Chambers

Ms. Litle

English Comp 121

21, February, 2017

English Paper 2

The Daisy Ad by president Lyndon B. Johnson, officially aired only once on September

7th 1964, was arguably one of the most successful political ad to have ever been created. While it

was only officially aired one time, the ad was continually aired on news stations due to the major

controversy it spread. In the end many voters were swayed to vote for Johnson by the fear that

the ad provoked, thereby securing the presidency for Johnson.

The ad starts with a little girl standing in a field full of daisies with one in her hand. She

begins pulling the petals off one at a time, counting up from one to ten. Upon reaching ten, an

overhead voice cuts in counting from ten down to one. While the overhead voice is counting

down to one, the camera zooms in on the little girls face which was paused in a look of shock.

The camera continues to zoom in on the girl's right eye, where it is black. All the while an

overhead voice is counting down to ten as if a missile launch is about to occur. Upon reaching

one a nuclear explosion is shown and soon the clip cuts to the infamous mushroom cloud that a

nuclear strike entails. While the clip shows these displays of nuclear warheads detonating

Lyndon B. Johnson gives a speech in which he says These are the stakes. To make a world in

which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we
must die. At the end of both the nuclear explosion clips and the voiceover the screen goes black

once again with only the words Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. before cutting to

the final text, The stakes are too high for you to stay home.

This ad was just one part of a very brutal ad campaign against President Johnson

Republican opponent Barry Goldwater. Goldwater had said beforehand that he would be willing

to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam whereas Johnson wished to simply de-escalate the conflict.

The Daisy Ad capitalized upon Goldwaters statements about being willing to use

nuclear weapons in the Vietnam conflict as a way for the American- South Vietnamese to

eliminate the communist forces. With the Cuban Missile crisis still fresh on the American

publics minds, fears were very high of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and its allied states,

such as North Vietnam.

The ad used pathos very effectively by using a little girl to represent the casualties that

would undoubtedly occur should a nuclear conflict occur, and then linking the start of a nuclear

war with Goldwater. This ad used two instinctive emotions of all humans, fear and protectiveness

of children. People feared nuclear war as people nowadays fear cancer, it was a death sentence

for all those involved. This fear caused people who normally disagreed with Johnsons policies to

vote for him to avoid nuclear war. The second emotion, protectiveness of children, went along

with the fear. Adult humans will go to great lengths to protect their and others children, and

casualties of conflicts or other disasters who are children are often regarded as a futile waste than

are adult casualties. To show a little girl in particular invoked these emotions among many voters

throughout the nation.The ads scenes of nuclear war frightened voters into voting against

Goldwater, by voting for Johnson.

 The ad was only shown once, and was quickly pulled by the Johnson campaign for

directly attacking their opponent. This move, however, only escalated the controversy of the ad

itself. Countless news stations continually aired the ad while discussing the controversy,

reaching many of the voters who had not seen the original ad and reinforcing its message for

those who had already seen the ad.

The Daisy Ad also used ethos to convince viewers to vote for President Johnson. That

Johnson had already been president lent him an air of credibility that his opponent found hard to

beat. Johnson was already a president, he knew the job and had done what seemed to be a decent

job of completing his jobs requirements in the first place. The ad of actually pulling ad by the

campaign managers gave Johnson a show of integrity by pulling an ad that had obviously been

against the rules instead of waiting for more controversy and outrage by Goldwaters campaign

to force him to pull the ad. This gave Johnsons campaign a sense of morality that Goldwaters

campaign and platform lacked. This helped to add credence to the ad and enforce his message.

Lyndon B. Johnsons Daisy Ad is arguably the most effective, and controversial, political

ad in modern history. It may very well have secured Johnsons victory over his opponent

Goldwater. The ad played on the Americans public desperate fear of nuclear war. The

controversy sparked by the ad helped Johnson as well as it ensured that the entire nation saw the

ad repeatedly. The Daisy Ad effectively utilized pathos and ethos to convince its audience to vote

for Johnson, or more accurately against Goldwater thereby securing Johnsons victory for his

second term in office.