Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
Is anyone else slightly nauseated by the run-up to the 2012 election? It’s the feeling I get when I eat a whole bag of something because it’s right in my face. We’ve chatted a bit on here about President Obama’s resurrection of Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, but let’s go back a term. We all know and love him on a deep intimate level: President McKinley.
I had a supernatural experience this summer (don’t question it) that guided me to this fantastic book, which also tells the story of the anarchist movement that led to his assassination.
Given the Republican televised mayhem and Obama’s stealth “jobs tour,” I thought we could reflect on another approach—the gentle yet effective Front Porch Campaign. To put it in the style of my high school history notes: “Pres. McKin. sat on porch, won.”
Going back a bit in the tale, we have to meet Mark Hanna, McKinley’s brilliant campaign manager. In 1896, a huge issue facing business in America was the fate of the gold standard and the rise of silver advocates. McKinley’s opponent, the young and vigorously determined orator William Jennings Bryan made it very clear how he felt on the matter. “You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold.”
Bryan delivered dozens of speeches a day all across the country. McKinley and Hanna took a different approach. McKinley stayed home in Canton, Ohio and Hanna went to New York City, getting the financiers to contribute for the sake of gold-backed currency. Business was so much on board that the Republicans took in $3.5 million while the Democrats raised $425,000. With the money that was raised, the Republicans sent out mass mailings by the trainload and people were lured to Ohio. Soon fans filtered through McKinley’s home, enjoyed lemonade on his porch, and all the candidate had to do was say hello and talk about his ideas in his living room.
And, ladies and gentlemen, he won. And went on to be by no means a passive leader.
While it might seem unfair that McKinley’s team passed the hat around boardrooms to bring in an unrivaled number of dollars, make no mistake, it was still a campaign that appealed to the average voter. It wasn’t J.P. Morgan on McKinley’s porch, it was an ordinary American before the age of television and Twitter finding himself drawn to a politician who stayed true to his roots.
Candidates are always trying to impart folksy wisdom. They want to be painted as a working family man like the rest of the population. But no one buys it.
Go sit on your front porch, Obama, Gingrich, and Romney and see if anyone visits you for a glass of lemonade.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
I can't see today's politicians wanting hoi polloi on their porch. And if they want to be "painted as a working family man like the rest of the population," then maybe they don't want "working family man" to see the size of their house in person.
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
This is a lovely little snapshot of a president I know embarrassingly little about. Also, thank you for the book recommendation! I'll snap a copy of it up as an early Christmas gift to myself.
Feb '11
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
I'd be most concerned about where the lemonade comes from; can't have an unregulated, unregistered, uninspected stand as the source. As a matter of fact, it's probably too late in the process for any kind of stand to get the necessary approvals before the general election.
Aug '10
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
Do any of the candidates even own a porch?
May '10
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
And the civic-minded people of Canton tore the thing down.
Apr '11
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
EJHill: And the civic-minded people of Canton tore the thing down. · Dec 8 at 1:00pm
Just as the civic-minded people in Washington are in the process of tearing down this great nation.
A moment of silence as I doff my hat for those who died to bring her into being and those that died preserving her......................................................Amen.
May '10
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
Maybe it's driven by the new ability to easily transmit visual images, but the photo-op visit seems to be a staple of electoral strategy: candidate at a construction site wearing a hard hat as the foreman points up at the framework of a new building, candidate at a factory with safety goggles inspecting subassemblies, candidate on a farm wearing bending down to pick up a handful of soil, candidate at a gradeschool reading to children seated in a circle....
There is a huge upside to these photo-ops that a candidate who just stayed on his porch be forgoing. Even though it's not strictly rational, it is consistent with human nature: evaluating a person we haven't met based on the context we associate with him, which is formed by impressions.
Jul '10
Re: Can we try the Front Porch Campaign again? Please?
I wrote here a few months ago about how impressed I was visiting Warren G. Harding's home in Marion, OH. He won the presidency in 1920 from his porch as his opponent traveled all around the country. Harding won in a landslide. Worth seeing his house if you're coming through Ohio.