Like its candidate and platform, the lemon-lime drink was rather sour

The Paris Review:

Television changed presidential elections forever—in part because it diminished the amount of neat stuff the candidates had to plaster their names on to gain exposure. A new exhibition, “Campaigning for the Presidency, 1960–1972: Selections from the Museum of Democracy,” reveals the bizarreries of electoral material culture. Andy Battaglia writes, “Highlights from 1964 include bottles of punnily branded Gold Water cologne and aftershave—‘an aftershave for Americans,’ the label makes clear. The grooming products might have resonated as a rebuke to the era’s beatniks and hippies … Voters were encouraged to literally consume the candidates’ messages. Gold Water also served as the name of a canned campaign beverage dubbed ‘the right drink for the conservative taste.’ And a can of lemon-lime-flavored Johnson Juice soda was emblazoned with a bucking donkey logo and a message that belies the sweetened beverage within: ‘a drink for health care.’ ”