Puns, rhymes and catchy phrases do remarkably well in United States presidential campaigns, even if they seem a little cheesy. After succeeding Warren G. Harding when he died in office, Calvin Coolidge won the 1926 election using the slogan “Keep Cool with Coolidge.” Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1952 slogan, “I Like Ike,” was so popular that one of his 1956 reelection slogans was “I Still Like Ike.”
“What’s [‘I Like Ike’] actually say about his policies? Nothing, but it’s cute,” says Julia Abramoff, publisher and director of editorial at Apollo Publishers, which will publish Words to Win By: The Slogans, Logos, and Designs of America’s Presidential Elections in October 2020_._ Historically, popular presidential slogans focus more on being short, pithy and memorable than on articulating a candidate’s policy position.
Yet sometimes, these attempts to be cute verge on awkward. In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s opponent, Alf Landon, used slogans like “Let’s Make It a Landon-Slide” and “Land on Washington.” When Thomas Dewey challenged FDR in 1944, his slogans included “Well, Dewey or Don’t We” and “We Are DUE for a Change.” Dewey ran for president again in 1948, this time urging voters to “Dew It with Dewey” (ultimately, they did it with Harry Truman).
Below are some more questionable presidential slogans in U.S. history.