'My Opponent Has 'Romnesia'?

My Opponent has 'Romnesia'?

Is that the best President Obama can do nowadays?

Seriously.

It was such a strikingly bad slogan more befitting of second-grade humor (which we have to be honest, we still like in some situations) that we felt the need to go back and look at some of the other presidential slogans of the past to share with you.

See if you can pick out any of them that sound familiar in the current election or ones that you may have heard referenced during this seemingly interminable presidential campaign these past 4 years since the day President Obama was sworn in on January 20, 2009:

Campaign     Candidate              Slogans*
1840 William Henry Harrison Tippecanoe and Tyler Too
1844 James K. Polk               54-40 or fight
1844 James K. Polk               Reannexation of Texas and reoccupation of Oregon
1844 Henry Clay                    Who is James K. Polk?
1848 Zachary Taylor              For President of the People
1856 John C. Fremont            Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men, and Fremont
1860 Abraham Lincoln            Vote Yourself a Farm
1864 Abraham Lincoln            Don't swap horses in the middle of the stream
1868 U.S. Grant                      Vote As You Shot
1884 Grover Cleveland           Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental Liar from The State of Maine
1884 James Blaine                 Ma, Ma, Where’s my Pa, Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha
1888 Benjamin Harrison         Rejuvenated Republicanism
1888 Benjamin Harrison         Grandfather's Hat Fits Ben
1896 William McKinley           Patriotism, Protection, and Prosperity
1900 William McKinley           A Full Dinner Pail
1916 Woodrow Wilson           He kept us out of war
1920 Warren G. Harding        Return to normalcy
1920 Warren G. Harding        Cox and Cocktails
1924 Calvin Coolidge             Keep cool with Coolidge
1928 Herbert Hoover              A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage
1936  FDR                             Sunflowers Die In November
1940  FDR                             Better a Third-Termer Than a Third-Rater
1952 Dwight Eisenhower        I Like Ike
1956 Dwight Eisenhower        Peace and Prosperity
1960 Richard Nixon               For the future
1960 JFK                               A Time For Greatness
1960 JFK                               We Can Do Better
1960 JFK                               Would You Buy A Used Car From This Man?
1964 Lyndon B. Johnson       The stakes are too high for you to stay at home
1964 Barry Goldwater            In your heart you know he’s right
1968 Richard Nixon               Nixon's the One
1976 Gerald Ford                  He’s making us proud again
1976 Jimmy Carter                 Not Just Peanuts
1976 Jimmy Carter                 A Leader, For a Change
1980 Ronald Reagan             Are you better off than you were four years ago?
1984 Ronald Reagan             It’s morning again in America
1984 Walter Mondale            America Needs a Change
1988 George Bush                Kinder, Gentler Nation
1992 Bill Clinton                    Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow
1992 Bill Clinton                    Putting People First
1992 Ross Perot                   Ross for Boss
1996 Bill Clinton                   Building a bridge to the 21st century
1996 Bob Dole                    The Better Man for a Better America
2000 Al Gore                        Prosperity and progress
2000 Al Gore                        Prosperity for America's families
2000 George W. Bush         Compassionate conservatism
2000 George W. Bush          Leave no child behind
2000 George W. Bush         Real plans for real people
2000 George W. Bush         Reformer with results
2000 Ralph Nader               Government of, by, and for the people...not the monied interests
2004 John Kerry                  Let America be America Again
2004 George W. Bush         Yes, America Can!
2008 John McCain               Country First
2008 Barack Obama            Change We Can Believe In
2008 Barack Obama            Change We Need
2008 Barack Obama            Hope And Change
2008 Barack Obama            Yes We Can!
2012 Barack Obama            Forward
2012 Mitt Romney                Believe in America

The hardest thing for any candidate to do is run on his/her record.  And yet, the powers of incumbency are strong and powerful.  Only 4 modern-day era Presidents who had been elected 4 years previously have been defeated by an challenger: Taft (1912), Hoover (1932), Carter (1976) and Bush 41 (1992).

Gerald Ford was never elected as President.  He was appointed by Nixon mid-term after Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973.

America is a lot bigger than campaign slogans and speeches.  And a lot bigger than any one person who serves as our President and Commander-in-Chief or any of the 535 other elected officials who serve in the public interest in the US Senate or House of Representatives.

But these are serious times and serious times demand more from our elected leaders than cute phrases on the campaign trail.

Early voting is now open in most states.  If you have read one sentence in any of these postings over the past 4 years, stop everything you are doing right now and go vote early and avoid any massive lines later.

Because this truly is one of the watershed years in our nation's history.

* mostly culled from a list from www.presidentsusa.net

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