{"id":7983,"date":"2018-09-10T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T14:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=7983"},"modified":"2018-09-10T08:43:17","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T13:43:17","slug":"do-campaign-slogans-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2018\/09\/10\/do-campaign-slogans-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Campaign Slogans Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pundits have cited many factors for Donald Trump\u2019s surprising victory in the 2016 presidential election: the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; Trump\u2019s use of Twitter and social media in general; low voter turnout by Democrats due to lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton; near universal media coverage of Trump\u2019s political rallies; meddling in the election by Russia and others; third-party candidates drawing votes from a frustrated and turned-off electorate. You name it and somebody has probably already suggested it.\u00a0 <\/span>But little has been written about the influence of the respective campaign slogans: \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d versus \u201cI\u2019m with Her.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been many memorable campaign slogans. Sometimes they are simply touting a candidate. Perhaps the most memorable of these is \u201cTippecanoe and Tyler, Too,\u201d used successfully by William Harrison in the election of 1840. (Tippecanoe was the nickname for Harrison, who had defeated Shawnee Indian leader Tecumseh in a rather unmemorable battle near the Tippecanoe river in 1811. Tyler was his vice-presidential candidate). Other memorable name slogans were \u201cI like Ike\u201d used successfully twice by Dwight Eisenhower, \u201cGive \u2018em Hell, Harry\u201d used by Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson\u2019s \u201cAll the Way with LBJ\u201d in 1964. Hillary Clinton\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m with Her\u201d falls into this category; although it doesn\u2019t mention Clinton by name it clearly focused on her as the reason to vote.<\/p>\n

Some slogans focus on a specific policy or issue.\u00a0 <\/span>For example \u201c54-40 or Fight\u201d was used by James Polk when he upset Henry Clay in the 1844 election. The slogan referred to the Oregon Territory, which the U.S. and Britain jointly occupied all the way to Russian Alaska at the latitude of 54 degrees and 40 minutes. Polk wanted the U.S. to have sole control of the entire territory and threatened to go to war with Britain over it. But after he was elected he compromised with the British on the 49th parallel, which is the present northern board of Oregon.\u00a0 <\/span>Other issue slogans were \u201cTariff Reform\u201d used by Grover Cleveland in 1892 and Woodrow Wilson\u2019s \u201cThe Man of the Eight-Hour Day\u201d in 1912. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But virtually every campaign slogan used in the last 50 years has conveyed a vague \u201cfeel good\u201d vision of the future that would take place if the candidate were elected. Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d (first used by Ronald Regan in 1980) is an example of this, as is Barack Obama\u2019s \u201cHope and Change,\u201d Mitt Romney\u2019s \u201cRestore our Future,\u201d Bill Clinton\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Time To Change America,\u201d Regan\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Morning in America,\u201d and George H.W. Bush\u2019s \u201cThousand Points of Light.\u201d<\/p>\n

How well do campaign slogans match up with the performance of the candidates who use them? Below is a list of 10 slogans from past elections and the 10 presidents who used them. How many you can correctly match up based on presidential performance? The answers are below. When you see the answers you might understand why candidates now prefer vague feel-good slogans rather than explicit promises.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are the correct answers:<\/p>\n

1. \u201cHe kept us out of war\u201d was used by Woodrow Wilson in 1916; five months, later Wilson brought America into war with Germany after the Germans launched unrestricted submarine warfare.<\/p>\n

2. \u201cVote yourself a farm and horses\u201d was used by Abraham Lincoln in his 1860 campaign. It referred to the Republican party\u2019s promise to support a law granting free homesteads to settlers of western land.<\/p>\n

3. \u201cA chicken in every pot and a car in every garage\u201d was used by Herbert Hoover in his 1928 campaign. Two years later the stock market crashed and the nation plunged into the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

4. \u201cHappy days are here again\u201d was the slogan and theme song for Franklin Roosevelt in his 1932 campaign. The Depression continued for eight more years and ended only with the outbreak of World War II.<\/p>\n

5. \u201cDon\u2019t swap horses in mid-stream\u201d was used by three presidents: Abraham Lincoln in 1864, Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 and George H.W. Bush in 1992.<\/p>\n

6. \u201cA winning Team\u201d was used by Richard Nixon in his 1968 campaign.\u00a0 <\/span>Nixon and his vice president, Spiro Agnew, won the election. But both were forced to resign from office before their terms were completed.<\/p>\n

7. \u201cRead my lips, no new taxes\u201d was used by George H.W. Bush in his 1988 campaign. But it was a pledge he found impossible to keep as the national debt kept piling up.<\/p>\n

8. \u201cPutting people first\u201d was a slogan used in Bill Clinton\u2019s 1992 campaign. But he ignored the rise of radical Islam, the genocide in Rwanda, and failed to pass healthcare reform (AKA \u201cHillarycare\u201d).<\/p>\n

9. \u201cA leader, for a change\u201d was Jimmy Carter\u2019s slogan in 1978. But a year later he was widely criticized for his lack of leadership during the Iranian hostage crisis.<\/p>\n

10. \u201cLet well enough alone\u201d was the uninspiring slogan of William McKinley in 1900. Tragically, McKinley was assassinated in 1901 by a radical anarchist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Pundits have cited many factors for Donald Trump\u2019s surprising victory in the 2016 presidential election: the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; Trump\u2019s use of Twitter and social media in general; low voter turnout by Democrats due to lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton; near universal media coverage of Trump\u2019s political rallies; meddling [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[1797,1585,80],"yoast_head":"\nDo Campaign Slogans Matter? - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2018\/09\/10\/do-campaign-slogans-matter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Campaign Slogans Matter? 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