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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: NARRADOR: The following is a pre-recorded paid political announcement. JOHNSON: We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help, and God’s. NARRADOR: And so Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, thrust suddenly into leadership of the free world by the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy, returned to the nation’s capital. He came with grief in his heart, but he also came determined that the young President he had served would not live or die in vain. JOHNSON: John Kennedy’s death commands what his life conveyed: that America must move forward. And now the ideas and the ideals which he so nobly represented, must and will be translated into effective action. NARRADOR: The promises made that November day were strong promises. One by one, they have been kept. An eleven billion dollar tax cut, proposed by President Kennedy, was signed in law by President Johnson on February 26th. The President sought and won support from both parties in passing a bill to fulfill our founding father’s commitment that every American have his full Constitutional rights. The anti-poverty bill expressed the President’s and the people’s determination to eliminate poverty from the richest nation in the world. It was signed on August 20th. Lead by the President, Congress passed five significant bills on education, more than any other Congress in recent history. The President signed the wilderness bill, saving threatened areas of natural beauty. He signed new legislation attacking the problems of transportation and housing in our cities. New programs to help insure the farmer a fair reward for his labor. In fact, forty-five major bills were passed. But the President’s leadership was not felt in the halls of Congress alone. He helped to settle a four and a half year-old conflict between the railroad companies and the men who operate the trains, averting a strike that could have paralyzed the nation. He cut the Federal budget, only the second time in ten years this has been done, and federal expenditures have been kept below the level authorized in the budget. When American destroyers were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, he replied firmly and decisively, and Communist aggression was turned back. In the dark days of last November, President Johnson expressed the nation’s purpose in three simple words: Let us continue. Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.