Tag Archives: Dwight Eisenhower

This Week’s Ad — JFK for President (1960)

Here is an ad from 1960.  Senator John F. Kennedy was running for President against Vice President Richard M. Nixon.  In this ad, the Kennedy team decided to use President Dwight Eisenhower’s own words against Nixon.  This is a classic “Them on Them” type of ad.  Do you think a “Them on Them” ad is an effective ad to use in a campaign?

Ad from the Past: Eisenhower for President



Outsiders Need Not Apply

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover

There are three types of Presidents.  The first type is the President who once held  a prior elected position.  That includes those who were elected as Congressmen, US Senators, and Governors.  Then there are those Presidents who were once in the military, but did not hold an elected position at one time.  Included in that category are George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.  The third category of Presidents is Herbert Hoover.  Hoover did not hold any elected government experience nor did he serve in the military.  His highest position in government was his role as Secretary of Commerce.  In the time before Hoover’s election in 1928 and in the time after his defeat in 1932, Presidents have come from either a military or elected background or both.  It seems as if the sign on the White House reads, “Outsiders Need Not Apply”.  Why do believe that is the case?

It’s a Presidents’ Day Celebration

In honor of Presidents’ Day, I’m displaying a list of the top 10 greatest Presidents as determined by the Siena College Research Institute Presidential Ranking Survey.  Results from that 2010 poll can be found here.

In their survey, the top rated President was Franklin D. Roosevelt, followed by Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson in the Top 5.  My list is in alphabetical order.

Who do you consider to be the country’s greatest President and why?  Take the poll and explain your answer.

Incumbent Presidential Vote Totals

President Barack Obama, as of this post, received 60,892,345 popular votes in his Presidential re-election bid.  This was down from the 69 million votes+ he received in 2008.  This is not the first time an incumbent President who was   re-elected for another term received fewer popular votes in his next go around than in his previous election.  The last that this happened was in 1944 when Franklin D. Roosevelt received fewer votes in his fourth bid for the Presidency than in his third.  The last time before that?  Roosevelt once again in 1940.  Here are the victorious incumbent Presidents and their popular vote totals in back to back elections.

Andrew Jackson

1828:  642,533; 1832:  701,780

Abraham Lincoln

1860:  1,855,593; 1864:  2,218,388

Ulysses S. Grant

1868:  3,013,790; 1872:  3,598,235

William McKinley

1896:  7,102,246; 1900:  7,228,864

Woodrow Wilson

1912:  6,296,284; 1916:  9,126,868

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932:  22,821,277; 1936:  27,752,648; 1940:  27,313,945; 1944:  25,612,916

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1952:  34,075,529; 1956:  35,579,180

Richard Nixon

1968:  31,783,783; 1972:  47,168,710

Ronald Reagan

1980:  43,903,230; 1984:  54,455,472

Bill Clinton

1992:  44,909,806; 1996:  47,400,125

George W. Bush

2000:  50,460,110; 2004:  62,040,610

Barack Obama

2008:  69,498,215; 2012:  60,892,345

What accounts for the drop in Obama’s total from 2012 to 2008?

Political Advertising

Here is one of the earliest political campaign television advertisements.  It is from 1952 and it promotes the candidacy of then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s campaign was the first to effectively use television as a mode of political communication.  What techniques do you see here in the ad that would capture the attention of the voting public?  What techniques are used in campaign ads today to capture the public’s attention?