--- title: Then and now:campaign ads that imply the other side will kill you (Daisy 1964, Medicare cliff ad 2011) url: https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/ description: a 1964 presidential ad suggested, without naming him, that the Republican candidate would start a nuclear war; a 2011 advocacy ad showed a lookalike of a… section: Then and now --- ![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg) [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/) # Then and now:campaign ads that imply the other side will kill you (Daisy 1964, Medicare cliff ad 2011) At a glance A 1964 presidential ad suggested, without naming him, that the Republican candidate would start a nuclear war… - **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) On this page - [Then: *Peace, Little Girl* ("Daisy"), 1964](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#then-peace-little-girl-daisy-1964) - [Now: *Is America Beautiful Without Medicare?*, 2011](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#now-is-america-beautiful-without-medicare-2011) - [Where they are alike](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#where-they-are-alike) - [Where they differ](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#where-they-differ) - [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#positions-on-the-record) - [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#same-method-test) - [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#how-to-spot-it) - [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#sources) - [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#images) - [Image gaps](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/campaign-fear-ads/#image-gaps) On this page **In one line:** a 1964 presidential ad suggested, without naming him, that the Republican candidate would start a nuclear war; a 2011 advocacy ad showed a lookalike of a Republican congressman pushing an elderly woman off a cliff over his Medicare plan. **The shared technique:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/). The archive's definition: "Imminent harm is staged so the audience accepts the offered protection without comparing base rates or alternatives." Both ads imply catastrophe from the other side's policy and offer one remedy, without arguing the policy itself. **Why this pair.** Both ads come from the Democratic or progressive side of US politics. The archive's other pages include fear appeals from Republican, Conservative and non-US governments; this pair shows the same method on the other side. | | Then | Now | | --- | --- | --- | | **The item** | TV ad *Peace, Little Girl* ("Daisy") | Web video *Is America Beautiful Without Medicare?* ("Granny off the cliff") | | **When** | Aired once, on NBC, 7 September 1964 | May 2011 | | **Who** | President Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign (Democratic); agency Doyle Dane Bernbach with Tony Schwartz | The Agenda Project, a progressive advocacy group | | **Target** | Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee (not named) | The Republican House budget written by Representative Paul Ryan | | **Reach** | About 50 million viewers live, then replayed on news programmes | Mainly online, amplified by news coverage | | **What was going on** | The Cold War, two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis | A fight over the federal budget and the future of Medicare | ## Then: *Peace, Little Girl* ("Daisy"), 1964 ![Frame from the 1964 Daisy ad: a girl picking petals from a daisy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/daisy-ad-1964.jpg) *[Peace, Little Girl ("Daisy")](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/daisy-ad-1964/). Johnson campaign, 1964. Public domain (published without a copyright notice).* A girl counts as she pulls petals from a daisy. A man's voice takes over with a launch countdown, the camera closes on her eye, and the picture cuts to a nuclear explosion. Johnson's voice says: "These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark." The ad ends by asking viewers to vote for President Johnson. **What was going on.** Goldwater had spoken about giving field commanders more latitude over tactical nuclear weapons, and the Johnson campaign built its message around the fear that he would be reckless with them. The Cuban Missile Crisis was two years in the past. ![Black-and-white news-agency portrait of Senator Barry Goldwater smiling, head and shoulders](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/images/campaign-fear-ads-goldwater-1964-11-02.jpg) *Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, in a news-agency portrait dated 2 November 1964, the day before the election. Photographer unknown, Anefo (Dutch news agency), Nationaal Archief, inventory number 917-0873; the cropped version held on Wikimedia Commons. CC0. The ad never names him; the portrait shows who its target was, not the ad.* **How the technique shows.** Goldwater is never named and none of his positions is described. The harm is staged through a child and a mushroom cloud, and the single remedy is a vote. It ran only once as a paid ad, but news programmes replayed it that week. ## Now: *Is America Beautiful Without Medicare?*, 2011 *Image gap: the 2011 video is copyrighted, so no frame from it is shown; it is described and linked instead. The photograph below shows the man the video's lookalike stood for, not the video.* A man who resembles Representative Paul Ryan pushes an elderly woman in a wheelchair along a scenic road and tips her over a cliff. On-screen text says Republicans want to privatise Medicare and asks: "Is America beautiful without Medicare?" **What was going on.** In April 2011 the Republican House passed Ryan's budget, which would have changed Medicare for people then under 55 into a system of subsidies for buying private insurance, while leaving it unchanged for older people. ![Representative Paul Ryan speaking into a microphone at a House committee table, with two men seated behind him](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/images/campaign-fear-ads-ryan-budget-committee-2011-02-09.jpg) *Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, speaking at a hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on 9 February 2011, eight weeks before he introduced the budget the video targeted. Photograph: Peter Larson/Medill News Service, via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons (detail of a larger photograph), CC BY 2.0. The video used a lookalike; this is the man it was about, not a still from it.* **How the technique shows.** A policy change for future retirees is shown as the killing of a current one. PolitiFact rated the ad's suggestion that the plan would leave the country "without Medicare" False, and later named the broader claim that Republicans had voted to "end Medicare" its 2011 Lie of the Year. ## Where they are alike - Both imply that the other side's policy will kill ordinary people. - Both stage the harm through a sympathetic figure (a child, a grandmother) instead of arguing the policy. - Both offer one remedy: vote against, or oppose, the other side. ## Where they differ - **Who made it.** Daisy was an official presidential campaign ad. The 2011 video came from a small outside group, not a party or campaign. - **Stakes.** Nuclear war was an existential risk that both parties took seriously in 1964. The 2011 ad dramatised a disputed budget proposal. - **Reach.** Daisy was seen by tens of millions on broadcast television. The 2011 video spread mainly online. - **Naming.** Daisy never names its target. The 2011 ad uses a recognisable lookalike and names "Republicans". ## Positions on the record - **Goldwater's campaign and the Republican National Committee** protested that the ad implied Goldwater would start a nuclear war. The Johnson campaign did not air it again, though news programmes kept replaying it. - **The Agenda Project** stood by its ad and released a new version in 2012, when Ryan was the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Republicans said the plan left Medicare unchanged for current seniors and was meant to keep it solvent for younger people. ## Same-method test A campaign ad from any party that stages the death of a child, a grandmother or a nation as the result of the other side's policy, without describing the policy, would be scored the same way here. ## How to spot it - Ask what policy is described, and whether the ad says what it would actually do. - Notice who the sympathetic figure is and whether they would be affected at all. - Look for the single remedy offered, and whether any alternatives or trade-offs are mentioned. ## Sources - Britannica, ['Daisy' political ad](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daisy-Political-Ad). - Museum of the Moving Image, [*The Living Room Candidate*: Peace, Little Girl (Daisy), 1964](https://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/peace-little-girl-daisy). - CNN, [Lyndon Johnson's nuclear 'Daisy' ad turns 50](https://www.cnn.com/2014/09/07/politics/daisy-ad-turns-50/index.html), September 2014. - Wikimedia Commons, [Daisy (1964).webm](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daisy_(1964).webm). - PolitiFact, [Throw granny off the cliff? Asks what country would be without Medicare](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/may/25/agenda-project/throw-granny-cliff-asks-what-country-would-be-with/), 25 May 2011. - PolitiFact, [Over a cliff, yes; but is this ad also over the top?](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/may/25/over-cliff-it-over-top/), 25 May 2011. ## Images | Image | Source | Licence | | --- | --- | --- | | Frame from *Peace, Little Girl* (1964) | FRAME gallery, from Wikimedia Commons | Public domain (no copyright notice) | | Barry Goldwater portrait, 2 Nov 1964 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barry_Goldwater_Portrait_1964_(cropped).jpg), Anefo / [Nationaal Archief](https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/) (917-0873) | CC0 | | Paul Ryan at a House Budget Committee hearing, 9 Feb 2011 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:House_Budget_Committee_Chair_Paul_Ryan_2011.jpg), Peter Larson/Medill News Service (Flickr) | CC BY 2.0 | ## Image gaps - **Frames from the 2011 Agenda Project video.** Copyrighted. Linked instead. No openly licensed image of the 2011 ad itself was found, so the "now" side has one portrait against two images on the "then" side. - **Other 1964 Johnson-campaign ads.** The Commons copy of *Ice Cream* (a second ad about nuclear fallout) carries a public-domain tag whose stated basis (published 1931 to 1963, not renewed) does not fit a 1964 broadcast, so it is [linked](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Cream_Ad_(LBJ_1964_Presidential_campaign_commercial)_VTR_4568-2.webm), not hosted.