The "Daisy Girl" advertisement was a campaign ad in favor of voting for Lyndon Johnson as President. This advertisement was one of the most controversial campaign ad's in history and used the power of fear to convince voters to vote against Goldwater. Although the ad was only shown once, the message was forever remembered and aided Johnson in his overwhelming defeat as he slid into victory. The advertisement begins with a little girl in a field plucking petals off a flower as she miscounts the number of petals she's plucked. As the little girl reaches nine, the camera zooms in until just the pupil's of her eye's are showing as another voice is heard counting down. When the countdown reaches zero, her pupil's are replaced by a mushroom cloud resulting from a nuclear explosion. A voiceover is then heard stating, "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." "Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home." This very to the point, exaggerated message was most likely untrue. However, the fear instilled into viewers was felt and most likely naturally took a toll. Johnson became highly criticized afterwards for his choice to use such a tactic to obtain presidency, and it was covered in large within the news. To this day, many have utilized similar tactics to persuade the American opinion, but the extremely bold assumption of potentially false information has been taken down just a notch.
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