Old Presidential Campaign Slogans Ranked in Order of How Utterly Hilarious They Are
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s an election coming up. People will tell you that THIS IS IT, THIS IS THE ONE—that we’ve finally reached peak election insanity and it’s all coming to a head this November. But these people haven’t been studying their U.S. history. I’m here to tell you that elections have been ridiculous for as long as we’ve been a country. Case in point:
#10: “Vote Yourself a Farm” – Abraham Lincoln, 1860
It seems like a promising transaction. Cast a vote, get a farm. No wonder voter turnout is low in America; we’re not handing out entire farms anymore.
#9: “We Polked you in ’44, We shall Pierce you in ’52” – Franklin Pierce, 1852
I see your “Feel the Bern” bumper stickers and I raise you THIS untarnished gem of political wordplay. Dark-horse Democrat Franklin Pierce wanted his candidacy to harken back to the good old days of James K. Polk, so he threatened constituents with this catchy, vaguely homicidal-sounding motto that I would’ve 100% gotten on a T-shirt literally the second I heard it.
#8: “Who is James K. Polk?” – Henry Clay, 1844
Before James K. Polk was the best historical pun this side of “I’ll be Bach,” he was a political nobody. His opponent, Henry Clay, was like the Nicki Minaj of yore, publicly calling out his lesser-known and twerk-prone rivals. His whole campaign slogan was basically just “WHO EVEN IS HE”—a stratagem that didn’t pay off in the long run, though I mean I guess he’s getting mentioned alongside articles taking Shakespeare quotes ridiculously out of context, so it wasn’t a total loss.
#7: “Keep Cool With Coolidge” – Calvin Coolidge, 1924
What’s so fantastic about this one is you can practically see the guy moonwalking backwards into the Oval Office and throwing up some finger guns.
#6: “Let’s Make it a Landon-Slide” – Alfred Landon, 1936
There’s a reason Landon lost to FDR, who had 98% of the electoral vote, and I’m pretty sure this was it.
#5: “He Kept Us Out of War” – Woodrow Wilson, 1916
A better slogan would’ve been “he kept us out of war for, like, five minutes.”
#4: “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental Liar from the State of Maine” – Grover Cleveland, 1884
This is the greatest string of words ever roped together in the English language. Or at least, it would’ve been…
#3: “Ma, Ma, Where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!” – James Blaine, 1884
“What rhymes with ‘Grover Cleveland’?” cries one of Blaine’s staffers on the campaign trail, wringing his hands.
“Nothing,” says his grim-faced peer. “We’re going to have to dig deeper. He has an illegitimate child, doesn’t he? There’s gotta be something there. Something scathing, but catchy. Something that rhymes.”
The presidential election of 1884. What a time to be alive. Grover Cleveland allegedly had a child out of wedlock, giving his political opponents cause to get “Ma, Ma, Where’s my Pa?” trending. The “Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!” part, well, that was a how Cleveland’s supporters answered the rallying cry. Spoiler alert: Grover Cleveland did indeed snag the victory, but I think the argument can be made that in this election there were no winners, only losers.
#2: “I Like Ike” – Dwight Eisenhower, 1952
It’s short. Sweet. Not too strong a sentiment, but catchy nonetheless. That said, I cannot in good conscience encumber you with this glorious burden—unequivocally the best and worst campaign slogan ever crafted—without also sharing the slogan that was born out of it for Eisenhower’s second term, which is, if you can believe it, even better.
#1: “I Still Like Ike” – Dwight Eisenhower, 1956
I think there’s a lesson here: if you have presidential aspirations, and if you’re willing to put forth the absolute minimal effort or even no effort at all, and if you can be bothered to vaguely rhyme things once every four years, then you, too, can one day be the President of the United States.
