I love looking back at this country’s politics in my attempt to learn where all of the bad habits of our political elite have been learned. One of the major criticisms of our current politicians is that they are only concerned with “soundbites” rather than substance. Since I agree with that criticism I decided to try and pin down where it all started. The rise of the Mainstream Media has always been blamed for “sound biting” every candidate until we could just scream. What I discovered was more than just a little interesting. The use of campaign slogans began well before the media became so powerful. The following slogans are sometimes cute, sometimes hurtful, but always entertaining. This is just a small sampling of old and new campaign slogans that started the “soundbite revolution”.

• Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too -1840

• Fifty-Four or Fight -1844

• Equal Rights to All, Special Privileges to None -1900

• Stand Pat With McKinley -1900

• Keep Cool With Coolidge -1924

• A Chicken in Every Pot, A Car in Every Garage -1928

• In Hoover We Trusted and Now We Are Busted -1948

• One Good Term Deserves Another -1934

• I’m Just Wild About Harry -1948

• To Err is Truman -1948

• Phooey on Dewey -1948

• I Like Ike -1952

• I Still Like Ike -1953

• In Your Guts You Know He’s Nuts -1964

• Never Been Indicted -1980

• It’s the Economy Stupid -1992

I guess we’ve come by it honestly. Apparently we citizens always were suckers for cheesy “soundbites” even when they were just called “campaign slogans”.

HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE “TIME FOR CHANGE” AGAIN IN 2024