Politics as Usual

by David Ramey

Every election year, you hear the same complaints. The candidates aren’t running on the issues, they’re running on image. Instead of appealing to the voters’ sense, they bombard them with empty slogans. Instead of frank talk about how Candidate Joe Feedlefutz would address the nation’s problems, you hear irrelevant stories about his family and his prayer habits. Bring back the good old days, you’ll hear it said, when Lincoln debated Douglas over slavery and the Union, when American political campaigns had substance, by golly!

If you really want to go back to”the good old days,” fellow citizens, you need to go back earlier than Lincoln and Douglas – back to 1840, in fact, when the first “modern” presidential election campaign took place.

America was in the throes of its first economic depression. As with any business downturn, the causes were complex. There had been wild speculation in land and stocks, which sent prices artificially high before they came crashing down. Former president Andrew Jackson certainly bore some responsibility for his crusade against the country’s central bank. But Jackson was a popular figure, a “man of the people,” and he had been out of office for several months when the crash came. Therefore, people put the finer on Jackson’ chosen Democratic successor, Martin Van Buren. The opposition Whig party had little to unite it besides being the “anti-Jackson” party. But the Whigs jumped all over “little Matty Van” for what they called his extravagant living whle many Americans were out of work. They described the (mostly imaginary) luxuries that surrounded Van Buren in the White House. And then in 1840, they nominated as their candidate for president General Henry William Harrison.

Harrison had become a hero in 1811 for his victory over the Shawnee Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Now “Old Tippecanoe” was 68 years old and had done little to distinguish himself since. The Whigs nominated him because they figured he was too oring for anyone to object to. Instead of asserting what he would do about the economy, they portrayed him as a rustic, “born in a log cabin,” to contrast him with Van Buren. In fact, Harrison was a rich man’s son and had been born in a mansion, while Van Buren was a self-made man whoe father had kept a tavern. But the “log cabin candidate” grabbed the public’s imagination. Harrison was celebrated in torchlight parades. Instead of talking about the issues, people changed the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!” (John Tyler was the Whig candidate for vice-president.) His supporters created giant paper balls covered with slogans that they rolled through the streets of various cities, shouting, “Keep the ball rolling on to Washington!”

Martin Van Buren never knew what hit him. Harrison won in a landslide, 234 electoral votes to 60. American election campaigns would never be the same again.

  1. Evaluate David Ramey’s article. Which of these best summarizes his point of view?
  2. America has lost its way.
  3. Politics has always been a dirty business.
  4. Political campaigns should focus on issues, not slogans.
  5. Some of our presidents have been persons of little substance.
  1. Evaluate how Ramey’s point of view is conveyed through his choice of words.
  1. Determine which of these best describes David Ramey’s purpose in writing this article.
  2. to relate facts about the election of 1840
  3. to express the opinion that Van Buren was a better president than Harrison
  4. to show readers that the style of today’s election campaigns has little changed since 1840
  5. to persuade citizens that they should look beyond slogans and images when choosing whom to vote for
  1. Evaluate Ramey’s article. Is he fair in comparing the way election campaigns are run today to the Harrison campaign of 1840? Explain why, or why not.