For many old political ads, the Living room candidate is a very good archive, and they have now opened the first of it's kind exhibit at Dallas' Sixth Floor Museum. The Museum director Ruth Ann Rugg was so impressed by the New York museum's online display of campaign ads, she wanted to expand its reach beyond the Internet.

But for pure slam-bang vitriol, no race has equaled the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater ad war. "1964 was the height of the Cold War and nuclear paranoia," Mr. Schwartz said. "I think both campaigns played into the fears of the time. It was the year of Dr. Strangelove."

President Johnson's jarring "Daisy Girl" ad aired just once on Sept. 7, 1964, before being withdrawn because of the controversy it ignited. It depicted a child counting to 10 while picking petals off a daisy. Then a harrowing male voice drowned her out while counting down to a nuclear blast as the camera closed in on her right eye in a technique recalling the terrifying shower scene in Psycho. An off-camera Mr. Johnson intoned, "We must either love each other, or we must die," leaving viewers to deduce that if elected, the GOP's Barry Goldwater might trigger a nuclear holocaust.
Dallas News

For more :30 second candidate where you can also make your own ads for or against a candidate, and watch the ads develop from storyboard to commercial.