Most politics buffs probably watched this ad at one time or another. And after it was over, they may have wondered - how in the world was the daisy ad so effective?
By modern standards, it seems both outdated and completely transparent. The implication is most unsubtle: voting for Senator Barry Goldwater will bring nuclear war. Today's viewer might find it somewhat ridiculous, even laughable. It would be as if Senator Barack Obama cut an ad implying that Senator John McCain would start World War Three.
Yet the Daisy Ad worked. Mr. Goldwater went on to lose the election by a landslide, partly as a result of said ad.
This was because in 1964, believe it or not, many Americans actually worried that Mr. Goldwater might use nuclear weapons.
Democrat Becky Greenwald has been low on cash the last few weeks, but her campaign bought 60 seconds of air time on the CBS and NBC affiliates in Des Moines and Mason City immediately before Barack Obama's prime-time special on October 29.
Greenwald's ad was outstanding and could not have been more clear about the contrast between her and incumbent Tom Latham. Click the link to watch the commercial, which made clear that Latham is a Republican who's voted with George Bush 94 percent of the time--even more often than John McCain. Meanwhile, the ad made clear visually and in the voice-over that Becky Greenwald is a Democrat who will support Barack Obama's policies.
I hope they will be able to air this commercial during the final days of the campaign. Please donate to Greenwald's campaign if you can afford to, so that more viewers will be exposed to this message. It's much stronger than the biographical ad Greenwald was running in late September, which didn't make much of a case against Latham.
We'll find out next Tuesday if Obama's coat-tails are enough to overcome Latham's big edge in paid media. It's a D+0 district where Democrats have made huge gains in voter registration in the past two years.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the United Auto Workers PAC has been running a radio ad criticizing Latham for voting for tax breaks for corporations and against equal pay for women. The ad also says we need Becky Greenwald in Congress.
This is off-topic from down-ballot races, but I felt compelled to post; the Democratic presidential primary debate in Philadelphia was an embarrassment. Not to our party, mind you, nor to either of our candidates. Rather, it was an embarrassment for the media, and for the entire profession of journalism. The economy is tanking. The war in Iraq continues on as an endless, unmitigated disaster. Next to no one can afford health care. Yet, what questions did these oh-so-esteemed debate moderators throw at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? Questions fed to them by the likes of Sean Hannity about Obama's acquaintanceship with a former 60's radical, who is neither a campaign advisor nor a close friend of the senator's. Questions about whether Clinton believes Obama can win. Questions about Obama's reluctance to wear a flag pin. A flag pin?!?!?!?! The Bush administration has our country on the ropes and all these media bobbleheads can talk about is a flag pin!?!?!?!? It's no wonder winning is such an uphill battle for our party; with such idiocy so rampant, I'm amazed that even half the country votes our way!
All the more reason for us to press onward and win these down-ballot seats, where the media spotlight doesn't linger long enough to turn the proceedings into a complete circus. Progressivism truly has to start from the ground up; in this info-tainment age, it's the only chance we've got!
On the Sunday after the midterm elections, in which Democrats took control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years, viewers tuned in to NBC's Meet the Press to hear what the Democratic win meant for the country -- only to discover that host Tim Russert did not have any Democrats on at all. Instead, Russert's guests were Republican Sen. John McCain (AZ) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (CT), who ran in the general election as an Independent after losing the Democratic primary. And after an election in which the public's opposition to the Iraq war was a central issue, Meet the Press hosted two guests who support the war.
Yesterday, I posted a diary asking help in formulating a response to an editorial printed in my local newspaper that slanders those who oppose Bush's escalation.
I have written a draft of a response (quoted over the flip). There were many things I wanted to talk about such as the fact the all three Iraq war veterans in Congress voted for the resolution, how the Iraq War took time, effort, troops, materiale, and attention away from the hunt for Osama, and so on. However, I decided to keep in short (158 words) and focus only on the question of supporting the troops, hoping it will increase the chances of getting printed.
I have noticed recently that my local newspaper, The Daily Tribune-News (Cartersville, Georgia) runs only editorials from right-wing talking heads like Mike Reagan, a former chair of the county Republican Party, and the like. A couple years ago, there was balance. The chair of the county Democratic Party, Howard Dean, and a local Democratic activist all had columns at one time. Now, that's changed.
But I digress. The object of this diary is not to complain about the right-wing slant of my local paper. It's to ask help in formulating a response to one column published recently.
