Presidential election campaigns increasingly rely on "market research" and the development of sound bites that negatively portray an opponent. But even in less sophisticated days, political managers and brain trusters probed for weak spots and ways to capitalize on them. Some times they were just lucky.
The Upsets
No US President was as sure a loser as Harry Truman in 1948. The left wing of his party had deserted him for a third party candidate, Henry Wallace, while the conservative South was running Democratic Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina on a fourth ticket. Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the Republican nominee, had given the unbeatable Franklin D. Roosevelt his closest call in the previous election and led a united party decrying corruption, inflation, and weakness against Communism.
Undaunted, Truman began a railroad "whistle stop" campaign swing through the heart of the country based on criticism of the Republican-controlled Congress. His shafts evoked from one listener a cry of, "Give 'em hell, Harry." Truman responded that that was exactly what he was doing and proceeded to intensify his attacks. "Give 'em hell" was picked up by reporters and audiences and, despite the failure of the polling services to detect the change in voter sentiment, the President's supposedly doomed efforts were crowned with victory.
In 1884, the Republicans had won six consecutive presidential elections, with the Democrats seemingly unable to shake the stigma of sympathy for the South in the Civil War. The Republican nominee, former Senator and Secretary of State James G. Blaine, had a good chance for the White House until one of his chief supporters tagged the Democrats as "the party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." The slur on Catholics stung enough of that growing minority to turn out in great numbers for Governor Grover Cleveland to give him his home state of New York and a narrow win.
More Turning Points
The background for the1952 campaign was almost a mirror image of the abovementioned 1884 context. In this case, the Democrats had run off five consecutive wins and the Republicans seemed permanently stigmatized by the "Hoover Depression." Despite nominating World War II hero General Dwight Eisenhower, the GOP found itself in an unexpectedly close race with Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, whose eloquence and wit were energizing Democratic supporters. Pollsters, stung by their 1948 miscall, were predicting a tight contest until Eisenhower announced he would "go to Korea" to seek a solution to the stalemated war there. The words proved magic and the Republicans swept to a landslide.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford had earned much gratitude for a smooth and calming takeover after the Watergate scandal. But he was plagued by inflation and recession as well as resentment against his pardon of former President Nixon. On the other hand, Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter was a little-known, unprepossessing former one-term Governor of Georgia.
In the midst of the Cold War, it was expected that Ford's long Washington experience and his recent involvement in the Helsinki accords and disarmament negotiations would give him a crucial foreign-policy edge over Carter. But in a televised Presidential debate, Ford responded to a question by stating that Poland was not controlled by the Soviet Union. In that instant before the viewing public, Ford's assumed expertise vanished, and many observers traced his narrow loss to that gaffe.
In 1988, George H. W. Bush, Vice-President to the popular Ronald Reagan, sought to be the first No. 2 to be elected to succeed to the Presidency since 1836. Despite his ample credentials, Bush was bucking some discontent with the Iran-Contra scandal and Reagan's failure to fulfill promises to reduce government expenditures. The Democrats had nominated Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, who had revived his state's economy, balanced its budget, and offered a technocratic, non-ideological approach to government.
Dukakis opened with a double-digit lead in the polls and was sailing along until GOP campaign operatives discovered that a felon had committed armed robbery and rape while on furlough from prison under a liberal Massachusetts program. The felon, Willie Horton, became the feature of Republican campaign ads and successfully raised the issue of Dukakis's being soft on crime. His poll lead disappeared and Bush was easily elected.
What's Next?
Does anybody want to guess what will be the decisive phrase or theme in 2008?
