The Daisy Girl Ad
CommonLit Staf
In the 1964 election, at the height of the Cold War with the USSR, Republican Barry Goldwater campaigned on a platform of pursuing aggressive military action against America's enemies. Goldwater's campaign suggested a willingness to use nuclear weapons in situations when others would find that unacceptable. His opponent, the incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, used Goldwater's speeches to imply that Goldwater would willingly wage a nuclear war, quoting Goldwater: "by one impulse act you could press a button and wipe out 300 million people before sundown." Fearing that he could lose the election, Johnson and his team decided to take more aggressive action.
On September 7, 1964, President Johnson's campaign aired the now-infamous "Daisy Girl Ad." The commercial begins with a little girl (two-year-old Monique M. Corzilius) standing in a meadow with chirping birds, picking the petals of a daisy flower while counting each petal slowly.
Because little Monique does not know her numbers perfectly, she repeats some and says others in the wrong order, all of which adds to her childlike appeal. When she reaches "nine," an ominous male voice is then heard counting down a missile launch, and as the girl's eyes turn toward something she sees in the sky, the camera zooms in until her pupil fills the screen, blacking it out.
When the countdown reaches zero, the blackness is instantly replaced by the bright flash and thunderous sound of a nuclear explosion, followed by a cut to footage of a billowing mushroom cloud.
As the fireball ascends, the final cut is made, this time a cut to a close-up section of incandescence in the mushroom cloud, over which the viewer hears President Johnson's voice: "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." Another voiceover then says, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."
The ad was immediately pulled off television, but the point was made. The ad appeared on nightly news and conversation programs in its entirety.
President Johnson won the 1964 election in a landslide victory, winning 486 electoral votes to Goldwater's 52.
On September 7, 1964, President Johnson's campaign aired the now-infamous "Daisy Girl Ad." The commercial begins with a little girl (two-year-old Monique M. Corzilius) standing in a meadow with chirping birds, picking the petals of a daisy flower while counting each petal slowly.
Because little Monique does not know her numbers perfectly, she repeats some and says others in the wrong order, all of which adds to her childlike appeal. When she reaches "nine," an ominous male voice is then heard counting down a missile launch, and as the girl's eyes turn toward something she sees in the sky, the camera zooms in until her pupil fills the screen, blacking it out.
When the countdown reaches zero, the blackness is instantly replaced by the bright flash and thunderous sound of a nuclear explosion, followed by a cut to footage of a billowing mushroom cloud.
As the fireball ascends, the final cut is made, this time a cut to a close-up section of incandescence in the mushroom cloud, over which the viewer hears President Johnson's voice: "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." Another voiceover then says, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."
The ad was immediately pulled off television, but the point was made. The ad appeared on nightly news and conversation programs in its entirety.
President Johnson won the 1964 election in a landslide victory, winning 486 electoral votes to Goldwater's 52.