The Daisy Ad

"These are the stakes...We must either love each other, or we must die."

-Lyndon Johnson, 1964

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyVn9k6d1og

Everyone always talks about the imagery of the Daisy Ad, and rightfully so. It's not a stretch to say that it helped change the course of political advertising.  I got to thinking about it this week after the bizarre conversations about McCain's latent, pro-sexual assault stances (or, Obama supporting a bill that taught stranger danger to kindergardeners...) and the McCain campaign's lack of grasp of common idioms (or, Obama saying "lipstick on a pig,"): how great would it be if Obama could drop an ad like this that (pardon the expression) vaporized his opponent? 

Obviously, the media environment today is completely different, not to mention 10,000 other factors, but when I went back to watch the ad, what struck me was the amazing juxtaposition between the apocalyptic visuals and the utopian spoken text from LBJ.  "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."  The alternative LBJ proposed was horrifying, yes, but the course of action he proposed--"we must love each other"--seems radical by today's standards.  

Then again, maybe you can only get away with that when everyone's too busy hiding under the table out of fear of nuclear winter.