18 October—Will penile election-denying Republican Congressman Jim Jordan be able to slither into the Speakership of the House and trumpify the country? In his wet dreams. Meantime, here are some more slogans from presidential campaigns in the last century.

In 1940, Republican good soldier Wendell Willkie’s prosaic, businesslike Win With Willkie, more pointed No Third Term, No Fourth Term Either, and unkind Roosevelt for Ex-President just couldn’t compete with popular Franklin D. Roosevelt’s far more impressive (and brilliant) Better A Third Termer than a Third Rater and Willkie for the Millionaires, Roosevelt for the Millions. So of course FDR got a third term.

The 22^nd Amendment, limiting the President to two terms, didn’t come until 1951. So in 1944 FDR got his fourth term, with the help of Lincoln’s 1864 slogan Don’t swap horses in midstream. Republican Thomas E. Dewey, sinking to Dewey or don’t we and Win the war quicker with Dewey and Bricker (running mate John Bricker) did marginally better than Willkie in 1940, but still lost big.No clue as to how Tom and John proposed to win the war quicker.

Vice President Harry Truman acceded to the presidency on FDR’s death in 1945. Even though the restrained but assertive Democrat (and World War I hero) from Missouri had in fact won the war quicker by dropping the atomic bomb, Republicans thought he’d be easy pickings for Dewey in 1948, not being as beloved as FDR. But again Dewey’s copywriters didn’t have the paronomastic self-control to not use the god-awful Dew it with Dewey. Phooey for all the Dewey hooey.

As it happened, that silly slogan and a picture of Tom Dewey festooned the first political T-shirt. But it couldn’t compete with Truman’s I’m just wild about Harry, Pour it on ’em, Harry!, Give Em Hell, Harry!, and especially the iconic The Buck Stops Here. So, despite the Chicago Daily Tribune banner headline the day after Election Day, “Dewey Defeats Truman,” the election wasn’t even close.

Segregationist Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat in 1948 with Get in the fight for states’ rights (with the implicit “to keep the niggas in their place”) and actually garnered 39 electoral votes from four states. Guess which ones. In all events, he didn’t cost Dewey the election.

In 1952, pithy I like Ike did it for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower over Democrat Adlai Stevenson’s corny All the Way with Adlai and inane Madly for Adlai. Couldn’t the Dems do better? Don’t you want to say “All the way with Add-a-lay” and “Madly for Adly”?

So in 1956, Eisenhower won a second term with concise, still to the point, subtly suggestive I still like Ike. Although Stevenson used “All the Way” again, Ike must have been helped by the unbelievably incompetent Adlai and Estes—The Bestest. Were they kidding? I remember it all too well. Estes was Estes Kefauver, Stevenson’s running mate both times. Evidently the Dems couldn’t do better. But they did do worse.

Richard Nixon was Eisenhower’s Vice President and naturally was reviled by liberals, probably from birth. NIX ON NIXON, an obvious but none the less brilliant textual and visual pun, first got my attention in 1956 as a political cartoon, possibly in the New York Post, at the time Dorothy Schiff’s ultra-liberal tabloid. It must have been used before then and certainly was used afterward.

Lyndon Johnson filched Stevenson’s rhyme scheme to trounce Barry Goldwater in 1964 with All the way with LBJ. The extra syllable (“B”) surely helped the scansion, but Goldwater himself was the best thing for Johnson’s campaign.

In 1968, Democrat “Happy Warrior” Hubert Humphrey’s self-congratulatory Some People Talk Change, Others Cause It lost to Nixon’s brilliantly calculated and calculating This time, vote like your whole world depended on it and memorable, concise Nixon’s the One.

George Wallace ran with Curtis LeMay as Independents that year, incredibly but predictably [sic] carrying five southern states, with 10 million popular votes and 46 electoral votes, almost causing a brokered electoral college. No noteworthy slogans, but implicit Segregation for the nation, like it or not.

Nixon held the Oval Office in 1972 with Nixon Now and the implicitly ominous Nixon Now, More than Ever. Nixon haters had tons of pun fun with Dick Nixon Before He Dicks You. But Nixon lovers had even more pun fun with They can’t lick our Dick and especially Don’t change Dicks in the midst of a screw, vote for Nixon in ’72. It scanned and rhymed beautifully. And it turned out to be prophetic . . .