[icon color=»Accent-Color» size=»regular» image=»steadysets-icon-chat»] Contexto
Spot de la Campaña de Lyndon B. Johnson durante la contienda Presidencial de 1964. Johnson había asumido la Presidencia después del asesinato de John F. Kennedy en noviembre de 1963. El candidato había construido una merecida reputación nacional por su defensa de los Derechos Civiles de los AfroAmericanos. Estaba enfrentado a Barry Goldwater, un republicano de viejo cuño que preconizaba el uso de armas nucleares y que la Seguridad Social debía ser voluntaria y no obligatoria. Quizás el spot más famoso de la campaña fue el trasmitido el 7 de septiembre de 1964 durante la película NBC de la semana y que fue llamado «Peace Little Girl (Daisy)» o “La Niñita de la Paz”. En la pieza una niñita típicamente americana deshoja una margarita mientras cuenta hasta diez, de pronto la voz se confunde con la cuenta regresiva de un disparo atómico que se refleja en los ojos de la pequeña. El anuncio, que no menciona a Goldwater por ningún lado, supo despertar los miedos de Norteamérica. La campaña republicana protesto pero ya era tarde, aunque retiraron el anunció, era imposible que la prensa, la radio y los espacios noticiosos de la televisión no siguieran discutiendo el dramático spot. Los anuncios de Johnson fueron diseñados y producidos por una agencia de vanguardia llamada Doyle Dane Bernbach, y eran, en su mayoría, spot de ataque a las vulnerabilidades de Goldwater. El guión del spot que vemos es el siguiente: TEXTO EN PANTALLA: Confessions of a Republican. REPUBLICANO: I don’t know just why they wanted to call this a confession; I certainly don’t feel guilty about being a Republican. I’ve always been a Republican. My father is, his father was, the whole family is a Republican family. I voted for Dwight Eisenhower the first time I ever voted; I voted for Nixon the last time. But when we come to Senator Goldwater, now it seems to me we’re up against a very different kind of a man. This man scares me. Now maybe I’m wrong. A friend of mine just said to me, «Listen, just because a man sounds a little irresponsible during a campaign doesn’t mean he’s going to act irresponsibly.» You know that theory, that the White House makes the man. I don’t buy that. You know what I think makes a President – I mean, aside from his judgement, his experience – are the men behind him, his advisors, the cabinet. And so many men with strange ideas are working for Goldwater. You hear a lot about what these guys are against – they seem to be against just about everything – but what are they for? The hardest thing for me about this whole campaign is to sort out one Goldwater statement from another. A reporter will go to Senator Goldwater and he’ll say, «Senator, on such and such a day, you said, and I quote, ‘blah blah blah’ whatever it is, end quote.» And then Goldwater says, «Well, I wouldn’t put it that way.» I can’t follow that. Was he serious when he did put it that way? Is he serious when he says I wouldn’t put it that way? I just don’t get it. A President ought to mean what he says. President Johnson, Johnson at least is talking about facts. He says, «Look, we’ve got the tax cut bill and because of that you get to carry home X number of dollars more every payday. We’ve got the nuclear test ban and because of that there is X percent less radioactivity in the food.» But, but Goldwater, often, I can’t figure out just what Goldwater means by the things he says. I read now where he says, «A craven fear of death is sweeping across America. What is that supposed to mean? If he means that people don’t want to fight a nuclear war, he’s right. I don’t. When I read some of these things that Goldwater says about total victory, I get a little worried, you know? I wish I was as sure that Goldwater is as against war as I am that he’s against some of these other things. I wish I could believe that he has the imagination to be able to just shut his eyes and picture what this country would look like after a nuclear war. Sometimes, I wish I’d been at that convention at San Francisco. I mean, I wish I’d been a delegate, I really do. I would have fought, you know. I wouldn’t have worried so much about party unity because if you unite behind a man you don’t believe in, it’s a lie. I tell you, those people who got control of that convention: Who are they? I mean, when the head of the Ku Klux Klan, when all these weird groups come out in favor of the candidate of my party — either they’re not Republicans or I’m not. I’ve thought about just not voting at this election, just staying home — but you can’t do that, that’s saying you don’t care who wins, and I do care. I think my party made a bad mistake in San Francisco, and I’m going to have to vote against that mistake on the third of November. NARRADOR: Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home..