19 October—It was seven years ago tonight, in a freak show billed as a presidential debate, that Donald Trump brazenly refused to assure America that he’d accept the results of the forthcoming election if he were to lose. Yet, even with his demonstrably shameful reputation, he was elected. Thanks to Hillary Clinton.

So where were we? Oh, yeah, it was 1972 and we hadn’t changed Dicks in the middle of a Screw. Tricky Dick Nixon managed to cheat impeachment by resigning in 1973, leaving Gerald Ford as President. Humble and self-deprecating as always, after being sworn in, Ford told a reporter, “I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln’s. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking.” Richard Reeves went on to do a best-selling hatchet job on Ford in 1975, which he called “A Ford, not a Lincoln.” In truth, Ford was a much better president than most people are willing to give him credit for.

Jerry Ford ran against Jimmy Carter in 1976, hoping that He’s making us proud again would dispel the widespread resentment at his having pardoned Nixon—which had actually been a wise, carefully considered move. But in spite of Ford’s cute puns like Not Just Peanuts, alluding to Carter’s peanut farming, and cleverer A used Ford is better than a new Carter, his campaign is remembered for the WIN—Whip Inflation Now and Ford/Dole/My 2 favorite 4-letter words (Dole being Bob Dole) buttons.

Carter was elected, but just barely, with about 41 million popular votes to Ford’s 39 million, and 297 to 240 electoral votes—although Ford carried 27 states, including Connecticut (those were the good old days), to Carter’s 23 plus DC.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s campaign asked it like it was, Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago? and suggested, Let’s Make America Great Again. We weren’t better off, the suggestion sounded patriotic, and Reagan was elected. So of course MAGA has been recycled—by Willy Clinton in 1992 and Donald Trump in 2016; and it’s still being abused by the former grifter-in-chief and his beastly band of blockheads.

In 1984, voters awoke to the poetic but absolutely ridiculous It’s Morning Again in America but re-elected Reagan anyway.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush’s A Kinder, Gentler Nation sounded nice, but what got him elected was Read My Lips, No New Taxes.

In 1992, however, since Bush couldn’t honor his pledge, Don’t Change the Team in the Middle of the Stream, although a metrical improvement over Lincoln’s and Roosevelt’s slogans, came out behind Willy Clinton’s dynamic platitudes For People, for a Change and It’s Time to Change America. Clinton’s Putting People First and Fighting for the Forgotten Middle Class sounded good, but the Clinton campaign struck campaign gold with its de facto slogan It’s the economy, stupid.

The 1992 Clinton campaign may have been helped by Down with King George, Pat Buchanan’s bilious historic allusion; Buchanan had failed to win any GOP primary against Bush. But Ross Perot’s conservatively Independent candidacy, using Ross for Boss and I’m Ross and you’re the Boss and Leadership for a Change, claimed over 18 percent of the popular vote; most of it was at Bush’s expense, while not actually costing him any electoral votes. In all events, it wasn’t clear who the boss really was.

In 2000, Albert Gore Jr.’s self-congratulatory Leadership for the New Millennium lost (or not) to George W. Bush’s oxymoronic Compassionate Conservatism.

In 2008, John McCain’s Country First and Ralph Nader’s People fighting Back and We’ll fight came in second and third to Barack Obama’s Change we can believe in and Yes We Can, the latter appropriated from the United Farm Workers and commonly seen and heard in Spanish as Sí se puede.

Patriotic dreamer Mitt Romney wanted voters to Believe in America in 2012, while Barack Obama simply translated the Italian name of a classic high-performance Studebaker (Avanti) to suggest the direction of his administration was Forward (presumably in top gear). Yeah, right. But Obama won a second term anyway.

Donald Trump in 2016 co-opted Make America Great Again, which he naturally claimed to have thought up with his own little brain. What a guy! Lovable Hillary Clinton lost to the Orange Prince with I’m With Her and Stick it to the man by voting for a woman and Love Trumps Hate. Nice pun, but it couldn’t trump Trump.

The Libertarian Johnson-Weld campaign’s unofficial but entirely sensible slogan was Make America Sane Again. The ticket of the two former Republican governors should have won, though I’d rather have seen Bill Weld as President and Gary Johnson as Vice President.

Unsuccessful primary candidates in 2016 had juicy punful slogans: Republican Ted Cruz’s preterite TRUS(TED); Republican Bobby Jindal’s racially allusive Tanned, Rested, Ready; Socialist Bernie Sanders’ Feel the Bern. Thirty-five-year-old Libertarian primary loser Austin Petersen’s Taking over the government to leave everyone alone was marvelous. Should Jindal have used Punjabi Bobby?

Unsuccessful Democratic primary candidates’ slogans in 2020 included Michael Bloomberg’s novel, imaginative I like Mike and Pete Buttigieg’s orthoepical BOOT EDGE EDGE.

Donald Trump’s 2020 losers are worth noting: Keep America Great; Promises Made, Promises Kept; Build the Wall and Crime Will Fall; Jobs Not Mobs, although Trump depends and thrives on mindless mobs. Green Party candidates were proud of For an Ecosocialist Green New Deal. Is that a sure loser or is that a sure loser?

Don’t be surprised if Trump uses I was indicted for you in 2024.

Almost forgot. The Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Herbert Hoover in 1928 was New York Governor Al Smith, a so-called “wet” candidate, because he opposed Prohibition. So his memorable campaign slogan naturally was Make Your Wet Dreams Come True. Yes, “wet dreams” meant then precisely what it means today. Absolutely brilliant double entendre. Pity it didn’t get Smith elected . . .