What can be said about presidential campaign slogans? The ones that are remembered are usually from the candidates who win. Barack Obama certainly caught the mood of the times with “Yes We Can”. I forget if John McCain even had a slogan. I believe he had some theme words, like “integrity” and “honor”. Oh that’s right, he did finally put two words together: “Country First”. Nice, but very forgettable. What other campaign slogans are memorable? Well, how about “All the Way With LBJ” (Lyndon Johnson, 1964); “I Like Ike” (Dwight Eisenhower, 1952); “Keep Cool With Coolidge” (Calvin Coolidge, 1924); and “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” (William Henry Harrison, 1840).
The most subtle and intelligent one, in my opinion, was used in John Kennedy’s campaign in 1960: “We Can Do Better”. One of the poorer ones came from Jimmy Carter in 1976, “Not Just Peanuts”. (I still admire and respect Carter as an intelligent, caring fellow, but he just never got the hang of being President). One of the creepier ones, relative to where we are right now with our current economic situation, was from Herbert Hoover’s unsuccessful 1932 re-election campaign: “We Are Turning The Corner”. In 2009, we hope that our economy is starting to turn a corner, just as they did in 1932. They had another 8 years of bad times to go. Let’s hope that we have less.
Interestingly enough, there have been previous slogans expounding the “Yes We Can” spirit. In 2004, lest we forget, one of George W. Bush’s slogans was “Yes, America Can!” And in 2005, a Middle-Eastern presidential candidate ran on the somewhat clumsy tagline “It’s Doable — And We Can Do It!” Yes, that was the one and only Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Note that the Iranian and Obama slogans both choose the global “We”, in contrast to Bush’s more nationalist sentiment. No wonder then that Obama wants to talk with Ahmadinejad; they’re both “we” kinds of guys. (And good luck with that!)
Anyway, here’s a good list of past campaign slogans. And for more, see the Wikipedia list.
Jim,
I must say when I got to Carter’s “Not Just Peanuts”, it set me to chuckling. I don’t remember that slogan, as I don’t remember most of the slogans; that is, when I read them I remember them, but if I had to pull them out of the air myself, I’d have no clue. Oh, how soon we forget.
My impression of Carter was that he was much too good and nice a guy to be a politician. He never could get himself to have the “killer” aspect that one needs in politics. Waaaaaay back in the Dark Ages, my father tho’t about being a politician. Since he was a very good Catholic, he consulted his priest about it. My father told me that the priest recommended that if he wanted to “stay a good Catholic”, he should stay out of politics. Carter seemed to come in the same category–too good a Christian to really be a good politician.
About your comment, “Let’s hope that we have less” referring to the bad times of Herbert Hoover in 1932: I think that it is unrealistic to think that we will go back to the times when people tended to spend, spend, spend their discretionary income and even their non-discretionary income and go into credit card debt. If the country is to come out of the situation we are currently in, I think that people in general are going to have to become generally more circumspect in how they spend their money. People will have to learn that not everything one sees advertised must become a need instead of a want. And I think the “want” aspect of buying will necessarily have to be reduced by most people as a general rule for the country to get out of the situation we are in.
And then we will have a general change in buying habits and a general change in what the country thinks is a “booming” economy. Rather than a “booming” economy, perhaps a “healthy” economy would better be the object to pursue.
And as to Obama wanting to talk to Ahmadinejad: I for one would like to see what comes of that. How bad can talking be? And I can see an upside to just talking. There is always the hope that a reasonable person will see that the “other” is not REALLY “the other.” It might be hoped that Ahmidinejad would be able to (at least begin) to see us not as “the other” and that we will be able to do the same. That tho’t presumes that Ahmidinejad is not a complete and total psycho/sociopath. And then too, how better to get the measure of whether he is a psycho/sociopath than face to face?
MCS
Comment by MCS — April 11, 2009 @ 7:51 am
Jim,
I must say when I got to Carter’s “Not Just Peanuts”, it set me to chuckling. I don’t remember that slogan, as I don’t remember most of the slogans; that is, when I read them I remember them, but if I had to pull them out of the air myself, I’d have no clue. Oh, how soon we forget.
My impression of Carter was that he was much too good and nice a guy to be a politician. He never could get himself to have the “killer” aspect that one needs in politics. Waaaaaay back in the Dark Ages, my father tho’t about being a politician. Since he was a very good Catholic, he consulted his priest about it. My father told me that the priest recommended that if he wanted to “stay a good Catholic”, he should stay out of politics. Carter seemed to come in the same category–too good a Christian to really be a good politician.
About your comment, “Let’s hope that we have less” referring to the bad times of Herbert Hoover in 1932: I think that it is unrealistic to think that we will go back to the times when people tended to spend, spend, spend their discretionary income and even their non-discretionary income and go into credit card debt. If the country is to come out of the situation we are currently in, I think that people in general are going to have to become generally more circumspect in how they spend their money. People will have to learn that not everything one sees advertised must become a need instead of a want. And I think the “want” aspect of buying will necessarily have to be reduced by most people as a general rule for the country to get out of the situation we are in.
And then we will have a general change in buying habits and a general change in what the country thinks is a “booming” economy. Rather than a “booming” economy, perhaps a “healthy” economy would better be the object to pursue.
And as to Obama wanting to talk to Ahmadinejad: I for one would like to see what comes of that. How bad can talking be? And I can see an upside to just talking. There is always the hope that a reasonable person will see that the “other” is not REALLY “the other.” It might be hoped that Ahmidinejad would be able to (at least begin) to see us not as “the other” and that we will be able to do the same. That tho’t presumes that Ahmidinejad is not a complete and total psycho/sociopath. And then too, how better to get the measure of whether he is a psycho/sociopath than face to face?
MCS
Comment by MCS — April 11, 2009 @ 7:51 am