The Politics of Fear, LBJ and “the Daisy Ad”

Background

In 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson, having assumed the presidency after Kennedy’s assassination, ran as the Democratic candidate for President against Republican Barry Goldwater. The senator from Arizona was a strident conservative, opposed to the New Deal, and a militant anti-communist. At the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, after winning a bitter nomination fight over supporters of moderate New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater stated that “Let me remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice is not virtue” (Patterson 549). In the 1964 campaign, LBJ ran on the “philosophy of consensus” against what he termed the Goldwater “philosophy of extremism.” As Johnson stated on the stump “The wrecker can wreck in a day what it takes years for the builder to build. . .And if the only choice between surrender and nuclear war, then we’ll all be dead” (Kearns Goodwin 207). The Johnson campaign also hired the advertising agency DDB to create advertisements that would play on fears, originally voiced by Nelson Rockefeller in the Republican Primaries, that Goldwater was too unstable for his fingers to be on “the nuclear button.” The resulting spot, officially titled “Little Girl-Countdown,” or “Daisy” aired once, on national television, on September 7,1964. It reached approximately 50 million viewers. The controversy accompanied this spot generated additional publicity, it was rebroadcast on multiple news programs. To this day the ad remains a benchmark of the “attack ad” (“Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”).

The following documents were reproduced in the on-line article: “Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”

Memo From Bill Moyers to Presidet Johnson, September 13, 1964

Mr. President:

While most of our radio-television campaign is to project you and your record, we decided - - - as you may recall - - - to run a few earlier spots just to "touch up" Goldwater a bit and remind people that he is not as moderate as his recent speeches want them to believe he is. The idea was not to let him get away with building a moderate image and to put him on the defensive before the campaign is very old.

I think we succeeded in our first spot - - - the one on the control of nuclear weapons.

It caused his people to start defending him right away. Yesterday (Republican National Committee Chairman) Burch said: "This ad implies that Senator Goldwater is a reckless man and Lyndon Johnson is a careful man." Well, that's exactly what we wanted to imply. And we also hoped someone around Goldwater would say it, not us. They did. Yesterday was spent in trying to show that Goldwater isn't reckless.

Furthermore, while we paid for the ad only on NBC last Monday night, ABC and CBS ran it on their news shows Friday. So we got it shown on all three networks for the price of one.

This particular ad was designed to run only one time. We have a few more Goldwater ads, none as hard-hitting as that one was, and then we go to the pro-Johnson, pro-Peace, Prosperity, Preparedness spots.


Goldwater’s response to the ad, given in Indianapolis on September 29, 1964

The homes of America are horrified and the intelligence of Americans is insulted by weird television advertising by which this administration threatens the end of the world unless all-wise Lyndon is given the nation for his very own. I'm not worried about whose finger is on the (nuclear) button in the United States, I'm worried about the itchy finger on the button in Moscow.

In 1984 statement by Bill Moyers on the retrospective impact of "Daisy"

"We advanced the technology and the power [of advertising] far beyond what is desirable for political dialogue. We didn't foresee the implications of serious messages in such an abbreviated form. Our use of the commercial was regrettable. The Frankenstein we helped to build is loose in the world.”


Here is the film



Discussion Questions

What images and filmmaking techniques make this ad effective?

How would a Goldwater supporter counter the claims that this ad makes?

Do you think that the Daisy ad created a new issue, or did it simply repeat and amplify existing sentiments about Goldwater?

Are negative ads a “Frankenstein” in the political process, as Moyers alleges, or are they an important part of Presidential campaigns? Has the role of negative ads changed since “Daisy” aired?

Sources
James T Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996
“Daisy: The Complete History of an Infamous and Iconic Ad”
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976, 1991.