{"id":19817,"date":"2014-09-10T05:30:30","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T09:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=19817"},"modified":"2014-09-09T16:17:18","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T20:17:18","slug":"the-mother-of-all-attack-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"The mother of all attack ads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I was 12 years old when I watched Lyndon Johnson\u2019s campaign ad that showed a little girl picking daisies followed by the mushroom cloud of a nuclear blast.\u00a0 Even at the time, I understood the message:\u00a0 Don\u2019t vote for that extremist Barry Goldwater!\u00a0 He will start a nuclear war!<\/p>\n

Yes, the ad, if you thought about it was utterably lame (a little girl? daisies?), but it had to have contributed to LBJ\u2019s landslide victory.\u00a0 Drew Babb analyzes the political commercial, which aired as a paid advertisement one time only on September 7, 1964 (after that, it was endlessly re-run by the three networks who covered the ad itself as a piece of news).\u00a0 He calls it the \u201cmother of all attack ads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here is the text of the ad, from the commentary linked below:<\/p>\n

LITTLE GIRL (plucking daisy petals): One, two, three, four, five, seven, six, six, eight, nine .\u2009.\u2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cMISSION CONTROL\u201d: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero .\u2009.\u2009.<\/p>\n

\n

SOUND EFFECTS: Huge atomic bomb blast.<\/p>\n

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God\u2019s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other. Or we must die.<\/p>\n

ANNOUNCER: Vote for President Johnson on Nov. 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.<\/p>\n

From Drew Babb, LBJ\u2019s 1964 attack ad \u2018Daisy\u2019 leaves a legacy for modern campaigns \u2013 The Washington Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

You can love \u201cDaisy\u201d for its power or hate it for its excess \u2014 I both love it and hate it \u2014 but it changed political advertising forever. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n

\u25cfIt gave politicians a license to kill. Earlier political commercials were overwhelmingly upbeat. In 1960, Frank Sinatra sang a rewrite of \u201cHigh Hopes\u201d for John F. Kennedy, with this jolly lyric: \u201cEveryone is voting for Jack, \u2019cause he\u2019s got what all the rest lack.\u201d<\/p>\n

But \u201cDaisy\u201d was a full-throated, gloves-off, take-no-prisoners negative message. Arguably, and for better or worse, it\u2019s the Mother of All Attack Ads.<\/p>\n

To execute the spot, the creative types didn\u2019t just run still photos with a crawl of type. They used every weapon in their arsenal. They grabbed for viewers\u2019 hearts with an adorable little girl (commercial actress Monique Corzilius). They tapped into viewers\u2019 greatest nightmare with footage of a huge mushroom-shaped cloud. (Remember, this was less than two years after the Cuban missile crisis.) They reinforced the visuals with intrusive sound effects (provided by the genius sound engineer Tony Schwartz). They had Johnson read a snippet of spiritual poetry (by W.H. Auden). And they hired a voice-of-God baritone (sports announcer Chris Schenkel) to wrap things up.<\/p>\n

[Keep reading. . . ]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was 12 years old when I watched Lyndon Johnson\u2019s campaign ad that showed a little girl picking daisies followed by the mushroom cloud of a nuclear blast.\u00a0 Even at the time, I understood the message:\u00a0 Don\u2019t vote for that extremist Barry Goldwater!\u00a0 He will start a nuclear war! Yes, the ad, if you thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,36,45],"tags":[258,2490,3025,1747],"class_list":["post-19817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-politics","category-television","tag-barry-goldwater","tag-lyndon-baines-johnson","tag-political-advertising","tag-political-rhetoric"],"yoast_head":"\nThe mother of all attack ads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was 12 years old when I watched Lyndon Johnson's campaign ad that showed a little girl picking daisies followed by the mushroom cloud of a nuclear\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The mother of all attack ads\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was 12 years old when I watched Lyndon Johnson's campaign ad that showed a little girl picking daisies followed by the mushroom cloud of a nuclear\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-10T09:30:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-09-09T20:17:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/\",\"name\":\"The mother of all attack ads\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-09-10T09:30:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-09-09T20:17:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"I was 12 years old when I watched Lyndon Johnson's campaign ad that showed a little girl picking daisies followed by the mushroom cloud of a nuclear\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2014\/09\/the-mother-of-all-attack-ads\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The mother of all attack ads\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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