Step 1 : Introduction to the question "Which former presidential candidate had campaign buttons with the chemical symbols Au and H2O?"
Barry Goldwater was an American politician best known as a senator from Arizona and the Republican candidate for president in 1964. Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign looked to the Periodic Table of elements for the now iconic campaign graphic (AU = gold and H2O = water). The campaign against Goldwater produced the "Daisy ad," one of the most famous political advertisements in American history, which presented nuclear war as a clear consequence of voting Republican in 1964. Goldwater lost the 1964 campaign for the presidency to Lyndon B. Johnson in unprecedented landslide.