[BigV]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

When I was very young, I had a recurring nightmare. I would describe it as something "trickling" but built and built until it overwhlemed me and everyone else. In eleventh grade, my class was watching a documentary in history. They showed a commercial for LBJ - it was a little girl pulling the petals off of a daisy, counting down from ten as she plucked each petal. When she got to five there was a voice over of a "rocket-type" countdown, which ended with a nuclear explosion. Sitting in class, I almost cried with fright - it was my childhood nightmare.

Daisy

the original commercial

In the New York Times, Alessandra Stanley argues that the ad – which she calls "as disturbing — and arresting — as a hostage video from Iraq" – represents one of the few times that Democrats have put out an ad that successfully appeals to people's emotions. "In the recent past, it has been the Republican advertisements that have tended to be more bold and more memorable: the Willie Horton advertisements that George Bush used against Michael S. Dukakis in 1988 or the specter of stalking wolves that his son, George W. Bush, used to make Senator John Kerry seem weak on terrorism," she writes. "Democrats usually have to go back to 1964 and Lyndon B. Johnson’s 'Daisy' attack on Barry Goldwater to find comparably vivid ads. Until now, that is."