The Log Cabin Theory - Essay Example

The Log Cabin Theory Introduction The Whigs victory in the presidential election in 1840 could not deny the fact that the humility is yet the best instrument in obtaining triumph. Nobody could at the time have so much power to control over the minds of the masses in the Mississippi Valley to develop a tremendous affection towards General Harrison. Being a pioneer himself, a settler, in the western sense of the term, had lived in his log cabin, and had favoured all the laws which had tended to the protection and security of the squatter. This was the lever by which the Whig party raised themselves from a hopeless minority into an unexpected and triumphant majority. The supposed sympathy of General Harrison, and the reputed aversion of Van Buren for the poor man, for the humble citizen, is the true secret of the great and tremendous political revolution of 1840. (Robbins, p. 42) General Harrison, a determined, self-made leader who rose from humble rural beginnings, armed himself through education, hard work or both, with the necessary tools for political leadership. (Chalmers, p. 149) The characteristics above are the types that are perceived to be uniquely suited to the rigours of political life in the United States. Someone who has been through the same struggles as the Whigs president is perceived to have the capacity to battle adversity and overcome obstacles threatening the achievement of their goals. The experiences of politicians with modest beginnings serve as their arms in battling all the challenges of the position in the government he will soon encounter. (Chalmers, p. 149) After 1840, party connections, tactics, and sentiments were widely and openly accepted as grounds of political conduct. It had by then become difficult simply to think of political life and active political leadership, even retrospectively, without reference to the motive of advancing party interests. (Beshady, p. 252) The log cabin campaign had set the trend in the association of politicians with political parties that supports them through the process of election from political rallies and campaigns necessary for the success of the candidate. Consequently, the rise of the "log-cabin" campaign brought a significant trend in the presidential election in the United States through presidential campaigns such that a presidential candidate with not enough campaigns may lost the track. The Log-Cabin History The "year of the great straddle" - this is how one scholar observes the 1840 presidential election. The Whigs, although united against the Jacksonians who were the opposition, found it difficult to set aside its avowed leader Henry Clay. He was too involved with Whig economics therefore he was perceived as a good Presidential candidate. Harry of the West was finally shunted aside through a complicated procedure of nomination and the Harrisburg convention came up with General William Henry Harrison as Presidential candidate. He was the most 'unobjectionable' candidate such that he does not have anything much to be talked about. He was even more unobjectionable due to his candidacy without platform. There were even indications that the Whig candidate does not know as to how the campaign will be conducted. It was only when an unknown newspaperman hired to be the editor of their campaign sheets did the party know their responsibility and their purpose - that is to oust the Democratic Party leader Henry Clay from power. (Ward, p. 269) Harrison's chance of not succeeding the presidential candidacy was far too obvious. However, the party did not know what image to portray in their campaign until a commentary has been delivered, for which its origin is unknown until now. "Give him a barrel of hard cider and settle a pension of two thousand a year upon him, and our word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days content in a log cabin." (Ward, 269) Instead of taking the issue in a negative perspective, the party had turned its motif as the central of the campaign. The log cabin, with its suggestion of the limitation, the simple life, closeness to nature, and distinctive Americanism, was placed at Harrison's disposal. The accumulated sentiment embodied in the single image of the pioneer's cabin was enough to convince an electorate suffering a depression that William Henry Harrison stood for, and Martin Van Buren perverted. (Ward, 269) It was an unfortunate mock for the Democrats, for it supplied the spark that was only needed to stir up popular sympathy into a blaze. The Whigs fanned the flame. Harrison became "the Log Cabin" candidate. The log cabin became the symbol of his found life, of his military services, of his kindred feeling for the farmers, of his unreciprocated labour for his country. A log cabin sprang up in nearly every city. Events and other forms of campaign were initiated for the candidacy. There was a club house and rallying place for Whigs. Log cabin "raisings" and house-warmings were held, with music and political speeches. Log cabin medals were struck, and passed from hand to hand. Miniature log cabins were carried in processions and displayed on platforms. Log-cabin pictures were hung in the bar-rooms and parlours. Log-cabin magazines and song-books found ready sale. Ladies made log-cabin fancy work for fairs, and children had little log cabins of wood, tin, and confectionery. (Seward, p. 48) The Whigs used the parody of the log cabin in representing Harrison as the "representative of the hardy yeomanry," attached to him not only the log cabin but also the mores important symbol in his campaign - the plow. Harrison was always denoted as the Farmer of the North Bend, The Farmer of Ohio, or The Ohio Ploughman. In parades there appeared banners that were painted with the lifelike pictures of the farmer of the North Bend, with his plow and team halted midway in furrow. The cover of the Harrison Almanac 1841, which was the party's newspaper, presented him in the act of plowing with the spirit of liberty enshrined in a cloud smiling down upon him. (Ward, p. 271) It was then a political whirlwind for Martin Van Buren. The election of 1840 should have been a chastening experience for those who believed in the intuitive good sense of the mass of the people. As the editor of the Democratic Review pointed out, it was "a political phenomenon so unexpected, so astonishing, claims from the philosophical democrat no slight or superficial degree of attention, in the consideration of its causes." But whatever the causes, the Whigs by unseating the Democrats stamped Q.E.D. on the formula first discovered by the Jacksonians. (Ward, p. 275) The Log Cabin and the Presidential Campaigns Presidential candidates from the major parties still did not campaign much. They did not even attend their party's nominating convention or make an in-person acceptance speech. Instead, they waited at home for a select committee to come notify them of their choice as nominee. After a brief statement of thanks, they generally did not utter another word to the public until the election had concluded. Their only communication with voters was through a written "letter of acceptance," in which they endorsed as best they could the main tenets of the party platform. Starting with Stephen Douglas in 1860, a few nominees, who trailed badly from the outset, broke with tradition and went on extended speaking tours. Nevertheless most candidates rejected this option, fearing they might say something to damage their position. (Dinkin, p. 67) Gunderson described the first American presidential campaign to fully use the popular rhetoric of "image politics" - huge rallies lubricated with hard cider, campaign songs, fictionalized biographies of candidates, outrageous claims and attacks, torchlight parades, and so forth. Contrary to the general association of Abraham Lincoln with a log cabin, Whig rhetors twenty years before Lincoln ran for president made the log cabin the symbol representing the rustic virtues that they attributed to their presidential candidate William Henry Harrison - a son of an aristocratic Virginia family who earned his reputation as a frontiersman during the Indian campaigns in the trans-Appalachian West and later as a farmer and territorial governor. With that ploy the Whigs won the election, which came to be known as "the log-cabin campaign." (King & Kuypers, p. 200) The 1840 "log-cabin" campaign initiated by the Whigs produced a series of firsts in the history of political advertising. The campaign also includes the first systematic and widespread use of what we now call the image advertising as well as the first songster. It had started several other forms of campaign such as that of a national jamboree stuffed with orchestrated parades, banners, torches, transparencies, and flags, omnipresent log cabins and hard cider, and coonskin caps. (Jamieson, p. 9) As what had Washburn stated, the modern counterpart of the log-cabin campaign is the 30-second television spot commercial that ignores issues, ignores party label, and concentrates on some aspect of the candidate's personality, usually one that links him closely with the ordinary voter. In its contemporary incarnation, such advertising rhapsodizes over candidates reading to their children, fishing in a rushing stream, or pausing to inspect peanuts in a warehouse bin. In its modern visage, Harrison in farmer's overalls is Jimmy Carter in a work shirt and blue jeans addressing voters from his home in Plains or Ronald Reagan splitting firewood or horseback riding on his ranch. (Jamieson, p. 12) Presidential aspirants continued to be promoted in numerous ways. One format that attracted increasing attention was the use of material objects. This period saw a great profusion of paraphernalia advertising White House hopefuls. Surpassing the variety of items produced for the log cabin campaign, the major parties on almost every occasion put forth a wide array of silk and cotton ribbons or elaborate handkerchiefs and bandannas, which sometimes contained the candidate's portrait, a slogan, or both. One ribbon in 1864 bore a picture of Abraham Lincoln with the caption, "Lincoln and Johnson, Union and Liberty." Later, small ribbons with pins were worn as badges on lapels. In addition to cloth, dozens of medals and tokens with the candidate's likeness were struck in brass, copper, or bronze. After 1860 small ferrotype portraits lodged in brass shells proved very popular, ferrotypes and photographs having replaced paintings. At rallies and parades local groups often created huge banners or posters featuring the name and picture of the nominee and his running mate. Many included an American flag, an eagle, a goddess of liberty, or other patriotic symbols in the background. (Dinkin, p. 67) Several other presidential candidates have followed suit. Image advertising reappeared in such forms such as the teddy bears of Theodore Roosevelt's, as well as the "hole in the shoe" in Stevenson's campaign in 1952. (Jamieson, p. 12) In 1940 television coverage of the political conventions was broadcast to an audience of 100,000 viewers. In 1948 Truman and Dewey purchased TV time to broadcast speeches. Two years later television had reached one-third of American households, and the first presidential spot ads were shown, the two parties spending $3.5 million on electronic media in that campaign, and the Republicans massively outspending the Democrats. (Davies, p. 198) Expenditure on television advertising accelerated rapidly. In 1968 Joe McGinnis wrote of The Selling of the President. But in that year the $20 million or so spent by the Nixon campaign on TV and radio was backed up by over 20 million buttons, 9 million bumper stickers with self-adhesive backing since the 1952 election, 600,000 balloons, and tens of thousands of straw hats, pieces of cheap jewellery and items of clothing. By 1984 the Reagan and Mondale camps each spent almost two-thirds of their general election funds on TV advertising, a proportion that has remained fairly consistent since in large scale campaigns. (Davies, p. 198) Even though cable and satellite TV have introduced 'narrowcasting', with targeted ads for differentiated audiences, electronic mass media campaigns seem qualitatively different from those methods of contact that leave you with a button, or a substitute for it, which may be a bumper sticker, straw hat, baseball hat, tee shirt, sweat shirt, sweat band, emery board, bar of soap, mug, glass, pen or pencil. In the 1990s street level contact and electronic media melded to a degree when the direct mail video became a major tool of candidates, distributed especially freely by presidential candidates in the early primary and caucus states, where votes may be expensive, but the payoff in coverage is enormous. (Davies, p. 198) On the other hand, these campaign materials were very ephemeral. (Davies, p. 198) They may have increased the popularity of the presidential candidate although this popularity is too short-lived. A great amount of money is spent but the people's retention towards the campaigns or the ads are too narrow to even recall them after the campaign. Large amounts of money are spent during campaign periods in the succeeding years until now. Even the smallest political parties can afford this kind of campaign. (Davies, p. 198) Sponsorships and other strategies are being explored nowadays in order to meet the needs in the campaign period. The internet or the World Wide Web has become as well a significant instrument in the presidential campaigns. Conclusion The log-cabin campaign in 1840 came as a surprise in the history of presidential elections and campaign process. As much as the opposition - the Democrats - were surprised of the sudden popularization of the Republican Party at that time, Harrison's party was also surprised. However, they have handled it so well that they turned it into one of the most memorable event in the American presidential elections history. But the event did not alone stop at making more surprises because the campaign strategies used at that time still applies to the present. Presidential candidates have adapted the different campaign instruments and they have even found innovative ways of making it more appealing to the people. Banners, songs, rhetorical events, parties, and the distribution of different items that symbolizes each party are still being held and distributed in order for keep the candidates on the "right track." Politicians, for the sake of their careers, and in the forceful pursuit of their ideas, will continue to adapt their styles to the changing political, cultural and technological environment in which they campaign. They are competing in the market for public attention against rival politicians, and against all the other commercial, entertainment, and news messages being projected, and market share is not enough. Entrepreneurs will continue to take advantage of the sales they can make on top of a vital campaign. And they will all continue to exploit new materials, design and technologies to inject the maximum excitement into the campaign. (Davies, 199) Works Cited: Beshady, H. (ed.) Social Class and Democratic Leadership: Essays in Honor of E. Digby Baltzell. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. 1989. 250. Chalmers, J. Rae Wear, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: The Lord's Premier. Journal of Australian Studies. Issue 77. University of Queensland Press.2003. 149. Davies, P. Campaign Buttons to Hot Buttons: American Election Images, 1789 to 2000. Contemporary Review. Volume 277:1617. Contemporary Review Company Ltd. 2000. 198-199. Dinkin, R. Campaigning in America: A History of Election Practices. Greenwood Press, New York. 1989. 67. Ganter, G. Republican Pleasures: Emerson's 'Circles,' Oratory, and the Log Cabin Campaign. ATQ. Volume 16:4. University of Rhode Island. 2002. 257. Jamieson, K. Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising. Oxford University Press, New York. 1996. 9-12. King, A. & Kuypers, J. Twentieth-Century Roots of Rhetorical Studies. Praeger, Westport CT. 2001. 200. Robbins, R. Our Landed Heritage: The Public Domain, 1776-1936. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 1942. iii. Seward, F. Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, 1830-1915. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 1916. 48. Ward, J. Andrew Jackson, Symbol for an Age. Oxford University Press, London. 1962. 271. Read More