Barry Goldwater's Advertisement: The Merely Another Weapon

Based on the advertisements, I would vote for Eisenhower because he was able to portray himself as a likeable man that listens to the country. Also the way the ads portrays his veteran background well and enforces the reason he should be the president.
Backfire advertisement’s purpose is to self-incriminate the candidate by using their own words or image against them. The “Merely another Weapon” ad used against Barry Goldwater in 1964 uses this type of advertising. The ad starts off with an explosion of a nuclear bomb and the narrator calls back to how Goldwater blew off nuclear weapons as “merely another weapon”. The theme of this ad was extreme positions on nuclear weapons. The point of this ad was to display Goldberg’s casual outlook on nuclear …show more content…
Fear would be the emotion invoked from this ad as a nuclear winter occurring was a possibility and a fear for American people. There is no target group as nuclear annihilation was a major fear for most Americans so it is for a general audience. The advertisement was effective because from the beginning it shows the destructive power of a nuclear weapon and the damage it could do if used as just another weapon. The advertisement “Tank Ride”criticized Dukakis in 1988 for opposing almost every defense system. The point of this ad is to show how hypocritical it is to have someone who opposes much of the defense system and also wants to be in charge of the defense system. Feelings of disbelief and shock are supposed to be felt from how hypocritical Dukakis is shown. This ad targets Americans in the military or Americans who have family members in the military because of how unsettling the idea of someone who opposes the