A congressional candidate in Michigan — Republican Bill Cooper — has recreated Lyndon Johnson's iconic "Daisy" campaign ad with a twist. Johnson's famously controversial commercial, an attempt to translate fear of nuclear war into votes, merged footage of a little girl plucking petals off a daisy with a mushroom cloud. Cooper's updated version announces that "now our greatest threat is from within," and flashes dire economic headlines to dramatize the dangers of a ballooning deficit. "Johnson's (in)famous 1964 spot" implied that "little girls everywhere would 'die' in an atomic holocaust if he were not re-elected," says Brian Goldsmith in The Atlantic. Cooper's warning about the national debt is "not quite so convincing." It may suffer by comparison, says Michigan political blogger Doug Zylstra, but this "well done" ad gets Cooper's message across. Watch Cooper's ad — and the LBJ original — below:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Codeword: July 24, 2024The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
Nasa's 'strangest find': pure sulphur on MarsUnder the Radar Curiosity rover discovers elemental sulphur rocks, adding to 'growing evidence' of life-sustaining elements on Red Planet
-
Bodycam shows deputy killing Black womanSpeed Read An Illinois deputy fatally shot Sonya Massey, who had called 911 about suspected trespassers
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attemptSpeed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
-
Supreme Court rejects challenge to CFPBSpeed Read The court rejected a conservative-backed challenge to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion banSpeed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling BiblesSpeed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitnessIn Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
