As the nuclear talks between world powers and Iran linger in the final stretch, and the American political arena is revving its engines ahead of the 2016 presidential election, several presidential hopefuls have tried to channel the criticism over the talks to shore up support for their candidacy. As part of his presidential campaign, Republican candidate Mike Huckabee issued a renewed version of an iconic 1964 political ad featuring a little girl counting as she tears the petals off a daisy, and once she finishes a nuclear bomb explodes. The ad, known as "daisy girl" when it was first used by incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 presidential election campaign, warned against nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The ad aired only once because of the controversy it sparked, but many believe it was a key factor in Johnson's subsequent landslide victory. Now, Huckabee's campaign has decided to recycle the decades-old ad, but this time to warn against a nuclear Iran. In the new ad, the old footage is used with the caption "A threat to Israel is a threat to America" followed by the words "Stand with Israel" and "Reject a nuclear Iran." Viewers of Huckabee's ad are also invited to visit the presidential hopeful's website and sign a letter on the topic addressed to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Huckabee's campaign staff acknowledged that using this ad was a controversial move, but one campaigner argued that it "emphasizes the threat inherent in a nuclear Iran." The letter that the former governor plans to send Kerry calls on the secretary to "reject a deal with Iran that will spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, threaten Israel's existence and unleash a wave of terrorism around the world." Huckabee further chides Kerry, saying the secretary of state "should be ashamed of [himself] for boycotting Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu's address to Congress this year but never missing an opportunity to visit with Iranian leaders. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a Churchill in a world full of Chamberlains. Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East and Iran is the world's largest sponsor of terrorism."
