The Daisy Girl

In the midst of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, the assassination of American President Kennedy was a sociopolitical sense of instability in possibly the worst time. The following election fell in the middle of a conservative revolution. Lyndon Johnson's opponent, Barry Goldwater, was highly favorable of total victory and a devout anti-communist. He was a more radical opponent and many believed that his policies would lead the United States to total destruction, not victory.

Johnson's campaign included an advertisement called "Daisy," featuring a young girl picking the petals off of a daisy when she is interrupted by a nuclear test warning, showing the powerful mushroom cloud that would follow the blast. The commercial told watchers that if Johnson was not voted into the presidency, the United States would be bombed into oblivion and citizens would die. While this commercial was monumental in swaying the votes in Johnson's favor, it was his policies that convinced people to vote for him and the sheer fact that no one wanted to die.

Johnson ended up winning in a landslide, easing the fear the people had of being killed in terrible deaths.