Abraham Lincoln insisted, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Politicians were said, "have long learned to use a phrase to stir the popular imagination. Such a phrase saves the people from the need for thinking. All they have to do is to repeat the phrase over and over again and then they believe that it is true."
Since 1848, campaign slogans had played an instrumental role in deciding the end result of political elections. Slogans such as "Don't Swap Horses in the Middle of the Stream."
It was pointed out, "In all probability the fundamental mistake of the Farmer movement in Saskatchewan (in Canada 1930) was in attempting to go forward without a leader. Experience has demonstrated that no movement will ever get anywhere without a leader. Any group of men and women who have not enough faith in humanity to choose a leader and stand by him, thereby obtaining some degree of unity and cohesion, will never get very far. In politics no one ever gets everything he wants. The key to success is making the best of the best that is available."
"As (Americans) emerge from the Watergate nightmare into the dawn's early light," one commentator observed in 1974, "are there the right words to reaffirm our faith in America?" It was suggested, "Alliteration in an expression the propagandists hope to put into the mouths of all the people is a doubtful virtue. It probably is the easiest to use of all literary ornament and discriminating readers resent its use for about the same reason they resent puns. Capable of arousing the reader’s ire, it is a dangerous form and should be used with the utmost care and taste."
By 2004 political scientists lamented "grabbing voters' undivided attention is harder than ever. So candidates' messages need to be sharp and maybe a bit sassy to be remembered." Jimmy Carter's former speechwriter made the observation, "We're living in an age of branding, and there are political calculations behind every one of these words." Hence campaigns "seem quite prepared to match slogan for slogan, phrase for phrase as they try to be the first to make their brands stick."
