Hail to the candidate

About this book

From the age of Washington on, voting our presidents in has been a quintessential American ritual. Hail to the Candidate details two hundred years of presidential campaigns, a tradition one observer has called the "longest folk festival in the world." As a chronicle of the changing character of American electioneering, the book captures the intensity and popularity of campaigns past and displays the array of devices candidates have used to project a positive image of. Themselves and a negative image of their opponents. Drawing on archival photographs and a vivid legacy of buttons, banners, sewing boxes, pipes, pitchers, snuff boxes, parade floats, bumper stickers, fliers, marching regalia, gadgets, and other novelties, Keith Melder traces the rise of political campaigns in nineteenth-century America. From Andrew Jackson's campaign to Lincoln's, from William Henry Harrison's to Teddy Roosevelt's, large numbers of citizens participated. In hurrah-style celebrations of democracy, unleashing deep emotions and outpourings of enthusiasm, partisanship, and popular delight. Melder also shows how electioneering became more restrained and less festive and joyful as new techniques of mass communication replaced rallies and parades, campaign symbols, and political artifacts - and, sadly, reduced mass participation. Tracing the history of presidential images from the first, sedate campaign of George Washington to. The video images of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Hail to the Candidate also focuses on political-party appeals to women, and on pollsters, media specialists, and television to describe the ever-changing political race to become president.