So you want to become president of the united states well you're in good company throughout the history of america countless individuals have campaigned for leader of the free world but only a select few have survived the horrors that await anyone brave or foolish enough to take on the challenge the methods of communication may have.
Changed over the years but there have always been some universal truths for achieving success and now yet another election season is upon us and we've had quite a cast of characters this time around but who will they choose unless i win it's been a waste of time for me folks well it's time to look back.
At who they've chosen before and most importantly why that sounds good to me in 1776 america declared its independence from great britain and the rule of king george iii and his fabulous clothes since then the usa has had 43 leaders of their own.
But despite a bloody revolutionary war and the war of 1812 where british forces set the white house on fire the two countries have become the best of friends and now there seems nothing that americans respect more than the sound of a refined british voice i'm giddy with delight.
So we've decided to bring together a whole group of them to create an unbiased and level-headed look at american politics at a time when everyone seems to be freaking out about it consider this a reminder that things have always been a little bit freaky some candidates who become president it seems quite a mystery uh why they've won.
Particularly from this side of the atlantic from the european side if i want a phrase to summarize the art of being president i would say it is the art of rhetoric american elections are a wild party they're much more expensive they're much more tiring i just don't know how people do it in the states we'll be looking.
Into the juiciest of topics like money read my lips no new taxes celebrity the nation knew him as a war hero leader of the famous charge of the rough riders.
Of san juan hill in the spanish-american war religion mr humphrey presented the pope with a gold automatic desk clock and two u.s policy documents on vietnam the look i run against a candidate who reminds me.
Of the symbol of his body the circus elephant his head full of ivory family the election of 1920 was famous for another reason also this was the first year that women were permitted to vote in every state of the union and the ladies too made harding their favorite in the race.
And perhaps most importantly of all messages but the in washington has betrayed the working men and women of this country we'll also cover how the founding fathers deliberately modeled america's republic on the roman republic which.
Featured an assembly of elected officials a senate and an executive branch heck even the symbols are the same the american bald eagle having its equivalent in the roman aquila so what can we learn from the politics of rome over 2000 years ago that will teach us about the politics of the usa.
Rather a lot it turns out but where exactly to start well in the words of president calvin coolidge the business of america is business so best to start with the money so how important is money in the race for the presidency very very important in fact it could be argued that its.
Has only grown and grown in u.s election history with billions now being spent in every four year cycle that's what i want huge fortunes can get you over the finish line but they're often needed just to get you in the race money was always important you had to make artifacts bunting badges all those things.
You've never been able to escape money not since the early 1800s american campaigns from the 19th century were rich with campaign artifacts the presidency has always been dominated by fairly rich to very rich candidates but quite clearly the man or woman without resources can if they're.
Charismatic enough if they've mastered fundraising enough they can still do it huge fortune behind you doesn't always count for absolutely everything calvin coolidge he's a very interesting example i mean he had money behind him but it was really the fact i think that the economy was already booming at the time.
And he was a safe pair of hands he was somebody that people could trust they didn't want anyone that was going to rock the boat they wanted a sort of steady accountant figure to run them through the next few years and i think that's why he won rather than necessarily having having billions behind him.
Having billions behind you certainly doesn't hurt though nord is being born into a political dynasty with a loss of wealth behind it however even this is no guarantee very few families in the world are as wealthy as the rockefellers who made their fortune initially in the oil business in the 19th century.
The only family member though who made it close to the presidency was nelson rockefeller who served as vice president so close he had run for the republican nomination on three separate occasions in 1960 1964 and 1968 but was never able to win the primary rockefeller of course was never president you can't in other words.
Contrary to popular suspicion simply by the presidency you need far more and you can be stigmatized uh as a rich kid who is just buying his way uh to pass so wealth can work in both ways actually for you and against you compared to the rockefellers though the kennedys must have had that awful stench of new money joseph p kennedy senior the.
Father of jfk was a third generation american descended from an irish immigrant patrick kennedy money had necessitated his relocation to america or a distinct lack of it the kennedy family of ireland could only afford to send either patrick or his brother on the weeks-long boat trip to the usa.
And it was the toss of a coin that decided who was to make the journey it would be patrick's grandson joseph who would put the kennedy name on the map though he was able to amass a considerable fortune essentially through insider trading during a highly unregulated time on wall street during the roaring twenties the kennedy.
Family became ever richer and unlike almost everyone else joe even made money off the wall street crash in 1929 due to his short selling with his considerable fortune at a time of huge depression joseph kennedy senior was able to rise up the political hierarchy quickly becoming the first chairman of the.
Securities and exchange commission where he outlawed the practices that had made him wealthy and then on to the role of a u.s ambassador joseph kennedy had hoped to make a shot at the presidency himself but soon realized it was much more likely for his first son to make it to the top however joseph kennedy jr would die in.
World war ii meaning all the kennedy money and influence was put behind jfk's ascent to the highest office and it worked he was being accused of you know he got so much money behind him daddy was paying for the whole campaign bankrolling everything and he told a story against himself he said that he'd.
Spoke to his dad and his dad had said you know i'm not buying a single more vote than is necessary don't think that i'm going to pay for a landslide it was a brilliant moment it worked and jfk turned the joke onto himself i think the subject's exhausted the invention of television changes the equation entirely because what american.
Politics has permitted and what has come to define it are television commercials the first to do it at the presidential level was eisenhower who had his famous eisenhower answers america series eisenhower answers america the democrats are telling me i never had it so good can that be true when america is billions in debt when prices have.
Doubled when taxes break our backs and we are still fighting in korea is tragic and there's time for a change they advertised in nearly every single state but it costs and these huge costs have gone up and up and up and although television has not had the centrality once did the other media have come to add to it so.
Now it's rumored that this current presidential round will cost five billion dollars in total campaigns may run into the billions these days but where has money played the biggest direct role in a u.s presidential election well it's hard to look past 1932 it was herbert hoover in the red corner and franklin delano.
Roosevelt in the blue corner hoover had won a landslide four years earlier but the wall street crash of 1929 and the economic depression that followed meant that money and the fact that almost nobody seemed to have any now was the top priority of this election the contest got ugly quickly with hoover calling fdr a chameleon in.
Plan an fdr responding in kind by labeling hoover a fat timid capital a cap on being a rooster that's been castrated fdr found the most eloquent way to deliver a sick burn aside from the insults this was an election where money was the key issue on a personal level fdr was a lawyer who.
Had been born into a wealthy new york family whereas hoover had worked in gold but not in the way you might think he pushed carts for 70 hours a week at a gold mine in california before moving up the ladder and even being transferred to china which seems like such a modern career path he soon moved even further afield to australia where he made his.
Fortune in zinc mines so both candidates were very well off but the country certainly was not the public wasn't even able to legally drown their sorrows in drink thanks to prohibition fdr was able to make hay out of that with the democrats campaigning to bring back booze along with the tax revenues that would come back as well.
Few republicans were willing to outright defend the ban hoover may have been a republican but he was actually accused of leading the country down the path to socialism in truth he never stood a chance roosevelt's promise of a new deal and the utter chaos caused by the wall street crash meant that hoover was blown.
Out of the water by a man who would prove equally unbeatable in his next three presidential elections in a time of crisis the u.s public went with the old money candidate over the self-made man so who can we thank for this whole messy business of elections and the role that.
Money plays in the lives of both politicians and their voters well you can blame the romans what have they ever done for us romans voted through a system that was much like the modern american electoral college system where someone would vote for them on their behalf but the number of people in each group varied massively.
Depending on their wealth and status of course you always need money to fund a political career julius caesar's first political expenditure came when he'd gone into hiding his earliest political opponent a man called sulla was out for his blood literally eventually one of sulla's.
Agents found julius caesar and he had to bribe him with two talents of silver and that's no small amount of money a talent is about 30 kilos which if you're not familiar with the metric system must be about the same weight as one of donald trump's legs.
Julius caesar spent almost the whole of his political career until he was appointed dictator in crippling debt borrowing from one man's payoff another but it seems that money has always been a key factor in electoral campaigns right up to the present day so we all know that money is vitally important but how does a u.s election actually work.
Well in order to become president you need to win over the electoral college but rather than an academic institution this is a democratic institution where each state gets a certain number of votes depending on its number of senators and members of the u.s house of representatives now every one of the 50 u.s states has two senators making 100.
In total but there are 435 members of the house of representatives and these are allocated to each state according to their population so little old vermont only has one representative whereas the most populated state california has 53 and that means that along with the two senators that both states have vermont gets three votes in the electoral.
College whereas california gets a whopping 55. of course as the country's population changes over time these allocations can also change depending on the census but with some simple addition we can see that with 435 members of the house of representatives 100 senators and a bonus three electoral votes given to the.
Capital washington dc the total number of votes available in the electoral college is 538. and presidential candidates fighted out to win these states nearly all of which are winner takes all maine and nebraska being the hipster exceptions going against the grain a successful candidate needs to get just.
Over half of the 538 votes which makes 270 the magic number the more you know of course dwight d eisenhower once said any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy and that sounds like most of hollywood so let's dive right into everyone's favorite subject celebrity.
if you're going to run for president then you're going to have to get your name on people's lips and there are many ways to do just that warren harding i mean he really shouldn't have been picked to be a candidate but it came out of a contested convention i don't think he would ever.
Have been picked if people just knew how many skeletons he had in his cupboard i mean a string of mistresses was bad enough but an illegitimate child as well this was hot stuff but it didn't come out at the time he managed to keep it quiet and of course he managed to get all those newsreels of the reporters the.
Journalists behind him warren harding was a journalist so he knew how to get his point across and he knew how people read newspapers harding would invite everybody to his front porch in ohio and just give his speeches from there which was a bit lazy but it worked very well he got endorsements from key people and more importantly he brought the networks.
Around onto his side and exploited that quite brilliantly entertainers like al jolson helped liven the campaign and harding always posed like a regular felon he had the august backing of charles evans hughes and the beauteous stage star of former.
Times lillian russell so the next thing he knew he was sitting in the white house and he was president we have reputations made in the military like eisenhower like ulysses s grant you certainly have reputations made by some act of of war heroism or at least a kind of telling way of placing what one did in in a.
Historical context like canada's writing that book while england slept like theodore roosevelt writing uh military history of the war of 1812. they come with high context in other words they may not have been an actual celebrity teddy roosevelt of course was because of his resigning as under secretary of the.
Navy and joining the rough riders in the war in cuba at 42 he was the youngest president in the history of the country his presidential career was starmie and productive he won the nobel peace prize in 1905 for his efforts in bringing the russell japanese war to an end andrew jackson i think is just fabulous he's got the best story he didn't go for.
Newspapers he didn't go for speaking to very important people and having them pass the message on he went for songs character chores cartoons things that normal people could understand building up grassroots support in that way he knew that images could really convey a powerful message and we see this with what he does when somebody calls him a.
Jackass to try and vilify him show he was stupid he was like no he took it he reclaimed it and now the donkey is a symbol of the democrat party the definite key is to have a private biography which is in some way impelling that you've done some incredible things in your past like in herbert hoover is a.
Classic case of that because he was an almost messiah-like figure in the first world war who brought famine relief to belgium and was feeding 10 million people through an army of 500. that's an extreme case of course but they have to have something i think are exotic in their buyer drawing parallels between america and.
Rome has been a middle-class parlor game in america for years it's older than the grand old party it's probably as old as the seven articles of the constitution any american politician surely has the names of the great roman consuls ringing in his or her ears marcus tullius cicero one of rome's.
Greatest orators or gaius julius caesar the consul who the senate appointed dictator perhaps that's why american politicians seem so fond of having three names john f kennedy lyndon b johnson harry s truman it has a certain magisterial ring to it of course if you're really popular then you get by on just one name.
Alexander pompey trump perhaps that needs work on that theory while it's unlikely you're ever going to be bestowed with a name as legendary as alexander the great it does help to have a name that sticks in the memory if you're in any doubt you can always just put an s in your name harry s.
Truman's middle name was just s because his parents couldn't decide between the name solomon or ship so they settled on s ulysses s grant was erroneously enrolled at west point as ulysses simpson grant and he decided to stick with the initials of usg a bit of alliteration can also go far.
Herbert hoover calvin coolidge ronald reagan and woodrow wilson have all benefited from a name that as shakespeare would say runs trippingly on the tongue wilson's actual first name was thomas but thomas wilson just doesn't stand out anywhere near as much as woodrow wilson grover cleveland's first name was.
Stephen but stephen cleveland just doesn't really sound that presidential but as well as the right name you need to be seen with the right people rome had its cults of celebrity just like modern america does today the difference being whereas you can vote anywhere across america in rome to vote.
You had to be in rome and so there are pamphlets at the time which say you know never leave rome you'll have time for holidays once you're elected your honor and your status within rome was all that mattered when you were seeking a high office in recent decades presidents have been constantly seen with a string of.
Hollywood stars and other well-known public figures but it's been a common sight throughout much of american politics presidential nominee al smith even had the endorsement of possibly the biggest sports star in u.s history babe ruth but he lost star support doesn't always work but when has the glittering light of.
Celebrity actually been the biggest factor of all in the u.s election well it's hard not to focus on 1980 when hollywood star ronald reagan took on the peanut farmer turned president jimmy carter it is time for a change carter had been the darkest of dark horses four years earlier but against all the odds he'd managed to.
Claim the presidency when the public trust had been shattered by watergate and richard nixon's resignation but this time around he wasn't up against steady as she goes substitute teacher gerald ford but real star power in ronald reagan reagan had been president of the screen actors guild and featured in dozens of.
Movies including king's row which was nominated for an academy award for best picture i need to say anything more reagan's acting career even gave him a cool nickname for life the gipper from his role is george gipp football star he even coined the 11th commandment thou shalt speak ill of any fellow republican president gerald ford obviously missed.
The memo as he once said i don't think reagan dyes his hair it's just prematurely orange despite the presidential put down regan was clearly a key player in hollywood for a long time william holden one of the biggest stars of the 1950s had been best man at his wedding and he had served two terms as governor of.
California his story inspired a lot of people even a gigantic austrian immigrant named arnold schwarzenegger campaigned for him essentially jimmy carter had no chance god bless you all it was almost as if he was campaigning against the american dream money stardom an a-lister is your best.
Man a tagline of let's make america great again sounds familiar a career path for all austrian bodybuilders turned actors turned governors even your own album that your opponent is holding up for all to see you just can't be celebrity of course reagan's star power would prove just as unbeatable four years.
Later against walter monday one really important factor if you're going to run for president is to have a good sense of humor and this is something that reagan got down to a t there was a brilliant moment with walter mondale his rival candidate and he was asked a very serious question mr reagan.
You're old you know have you got the stamina have you got the energy to continue to be president you know there's going to be late night meetings you're going to be working for days on end reagan looks at the camera deadpan no sense of humor evident he says i will not let age become an issue in.
This presidential election i will not exploit for political purposes the youth and inexperience of my rival it brought the house down it was fantastic even walter mondale was sitting there laughing he couldn't stop himself it was a brilliant moment and a turning point in the campaign.
a sense of humor will get you a long way but it pays to have a pr mastermind on your team barack obama had david axelrod in his corner and george h.w bush had lee atwater aka the boogeyman harry s truman once remarked all the president is is a glorified public.
Relations man who spends his time flattering kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway while that may be a little true politicians have always needed a pr man of their own a man called quintus tullius cicero the brother of the great orator marcus.
Tullius cicero writes a pamphlet to help his brother's political campaign he says anyone who asks him for help should promise him that help people prefer an insincere promise to an outright refusal he says to him if you promise something and then you can't fulfill that promise people might be angry with you but that.
Outcomes uncertain it's off in the future and it's only going to affect a small amount of people but if you refuse to make promises well then people's anger with you is going to be absolutely certain it's going to be now and it's going to offend everyone.
Speaking of offending everyone it's time to be brave and talk about religion judge not lest thee be judged unless you're running for office in which case judge away but when has the thorny issue of religion been the most deciding factor in a u.s presidential election.
Well it's hard to look any further than 1928 when al smith went up against herbert hoover al smith had all the makings of a winning candidate having served four terms as governor of new york but there was a snag al smith was a highly respected follower of the roman catholic faith he was the.
First catholic nominee for president from a major party and for much of the country at the time he might as well have been a satanist smith was subjected to terrible anti-catholic propaganda some people were convinced the pope himself would construct a mighty castle in america where he would hold sway over his pawn.
Of a president with his dastardly european ways just a decade before the election a virulently anti-catholic newspaper was selling over a million copies a week the paper was called the menace it wasn't exactly subtle and nowhere near as good as dennis the most smith may have had the backing of the new york yankees and some great sound.
Bites such as the american people never carry an umbrella they prepare to walk in eternal sunshine but it's hard to stay positive when you've been declared the enemy of the fiercely anti-catholic ku klux klan whose popularity soared in the early 1920s herbert hoover was actually the first.
Quaker candidate but his religion never became an issue because well he wasn't catholic and to his eternal credit he never personally made an issue of al smith's faith in the end the task was insurmountable and smith lost by a considerable margin a joke went round after that loss that he sent a one-word telegram to the pope.
In rome the message unpack the role of religion in u.s presidential elections is difficult to quantify but one must never underestimate its importance religion plays a role of course it does.
No harm to show that you believe in god americans are religious people but don't overdo it the great irony of the united states is that the founding fathers quite a number of them were not actually technically christian they were deists and so thomas jefferson created the jefferson bible where he simply went through it with scissors and cut out.
The bits he disagreed with you couldn't do that today look at teddy roosevelt i mean he was very keen on the separation between church and state and he wanted to take off in god we trust off the banknotes quite a dramatic suggestion actually and yet it did him no harm at all he still won the election residents at 1600 pennsylvania avenue.
Have had a wide range of religious beliefs there have been a very large number of episcopalians but we have also seen members of the dutch reform church quakers methodists and even unitarians roman catholic al smith may have faced an insurmountable religious barrier in 1928 but john f kennedy was able to.
Overcome it he did face some skepticism that he would bow down to the foreign alien italian pope when he ran in 1960 however in just 32 years the country had changed so much and as his wife jackie said but he's such a poor catholic there would be another major shift in presidential politics when jimmy carter.
Became the first born-again christian to reach the white house it's very difficult to think of the president who actually articulated so publicly the power of religion in his private life as carter did he was a southerner he was a peanut farmer so he had both a rural and a christian and a youthful and vigorous demeanor and.
Background and personal narrative it's a case of mr deeds goes to washington he was going to change and reform things and return america's lost soul which had been of course contaminated by nixon he has compassion he loves people he has a wonderful handshake which shows his character too.
He's a good christian man the evangelical movement has proved a decisive factor in the outcome of several elections since most notably those of george w bush but while the focus on a candidate's religion may have intensified in the last few decades the language they use has lost some of the religious overtones.
Favored by earlier presidents the later american rhetoric particularly reagan was really drawing from popular culture like where he called colonel gandafi the flake or where he said i'm not a rabbit whereas the rhetoric of an earlier generation was based on the shared common biblical culture as roosevelt as.
His inaugural we have thrown the money changers down from their high seats at the temple an extraordinary thing to say i mean it's almost a bolshevik sentiment but it does have a direct biblical referent which you probably wouldn't do today far more draw from the culture of hollywood of popular movies of soap operas and popular since.
Phew we made it through the religion section without too much of an argument at the dinner table but there's one other topic that can really make or break a campaign and cause a lot of quarrels along the way how a candidate looks increasingly important i think if you.
Want to be president is to be fit or if you're not fit be seen to be fit you know obama is very good at being seen on the white house lawn shirt sleeves rolled up looking pretty physically fit and of course george w bush he was forever being filmed going out jogging just to prove that he was top of his game physically.
But then you get figures like taft coming along this vast ample girthed man i mean i'm not sure he could get elected these days he wouldn't look too good running around the white house lawn in shorts and a t-shirt he was moderate in almost everything but his enjoyment of food this sort of obsession with fitness goes.
All the way back to 1904. teddy roosevelt is probably the most bro of all presidents like a real frat guy you know he did horse riding he did wrestling and then he did jiu jitsu he went skinny dipping in ice cold places so he was really like the all-american guy the other thing that's interesting about.
Teddy roosevelt is the way that he used spin he really understood the importance of actually getting out there and doing kind of publicity stunts because it was teddy they were just really macho they're a bit like the sort of things putin does today so he rode 98 miles on horseback for one of them and another one he went under in a submarine.
If he could be photographed plunging into the icy potomac river why not he realized that this was very important even though he was a big bear of a man didn't look particularly fit to be seen to be active is very very important and that still holds strong to this day in past elections we've seen lots of machismo as well this pioneering spirit.
The founding fathers in fact warren harding was the first one to use that term there is that paternal aspect to someone becoming president it's not there when you become prime minister i think the history of america dictates that uk and u.s elections are very different there's much more of a fanfare with american.
Elections it's a much bigger deal when that person is elected it's like they're the father it seems much more important if you are elected president then chances are someday your likeness will appear on u.s currency so it's important to get the look just right.
And when it comes to having the perfect look to win an election it's hard to find a better example than the battle between john f kennedy and richard nixon in 1960 jfk and his wife jacqueline could have been mistaken for a movie star couple but they had to work very hard to cultivate this image kennedy had a.
Lifelong history of medical issues including chronic back pain president kennedy deplanes by way of a power lift in this way he protects his injured back the man was essentially a walking temple of agony he managed to keep secret the fact that he'd been diagnosed with addison's disease a rare condition that affects the adrenal glands which are.
Rather important if you're running for president and don't want to appear constantly exhausted but kennedy decided to turn his weakness into a strength and gave himself the look of a jet setting sunglasses wearing sailboat captaining ice cream eating american icon the pure picture of health the crowds are bursting with enthusiasm.
And mr kennedy returns the goodwill with equal spirit his timing couldn't have been more perfect as this was the first election to feature presidential debates and they would be shown on live television richard nixon on the other hand couldn't have had worse timing he injured his knee in a car door accident and had to.
Halt his campaign while he recovered by the time the first tv debate came round nixon was still a little the worst for wear he refused to put on any makeup and under the glare of the lights he looked like death warmed up mother nixon even made a call straight after to find out if he was sick that's how you know for certain that things didn't go well.
In contrast kennedy looked radiant and suntanned like the most unbearable jock at the beach everybody loved him nixon managed to claw his way back in the following debates with the help of a little maker but the intensely close election went jfk's way it was the swinging 60s after all and nixon was just too much of a square in a time of.
Great fear of creeping communism the american public went with a man with just the right look for the time it's trite to say but appearance is superficial julius caesar a man who perhaps represents strength in the roman republic to many people some people say he had malaria some people say he had a cerebral vascular.
Disease some historians even think he had a tapeworm in his brain needless to say he wasn't a well man but suetonius says he was tall and he had a great complexion and he had keen black eyes he had the look it's hard not to think of jfk i mean voters didn't know when he was running.
For election but by the time the cuban missile crisis jfk was on barbiturates to help him sleep he was on ritalin and librium for anxiety he was on codeine demerol and methadone for his pain he was on antibiotics anti-spasmodics.
Hormones and salt tablets just to keep him alive but that hair kennedy rewrote the script after kennedy everyone wanted to be like kennedy you can trust kennedy with the first world war veteran harold mcmillan who's british prime minister of the time he.
Was an extraordinary contrast an old country and a young country so a young youthful leader has uh great symbolism but it was not just the looks it was all the associated things the open-mindedness the dynamism you see it again with trudeau in canada the kds charisma everyone wants it but of course our.
Great tragedy for america no one has ever been kennedy there's only one kennedy no one will ever retrieve the magic of camelot while it may be impossible to capture the kennedy magic you can still win over hearts and minds in your campaign for the u.s presidency however if you are running and it isn't going very well if.
All the polls show you're down by double digits and political commentators are writing you off as yesterday's news doomed to electoral embarrassment and eternal irrelevance there's always one hope the silent majority the phrase was made famous by richard nixon in 1968 he wasn't up against the.
Dynamic john f kennedy but the rather less exciting hubert humphrey president-elect kennedy called on me when i was here at florida and now history repeats itself uh so i know exactly how you feel thank you very much the silent majority is a very very powerful phrase there is though i think a general issue with politics that it is.
Monopolized by what we call in this country the the champion class and there is indeed a sign of majority but what the political complexion of that majority is is is hard to discern calvin coolidge's first campaign has been documented as using the term silent majority but it probably showed itself.
Most clearly in the 1948 election where harry s truman defeated thomas dewey in one of the greatest election upsets of all time the issue with truman was his victory he so deserved it he was a remarkable president just because he seemed like the.
Proprietor of a haberdashery store in kansas city missouri because that's what he was originally was actually part of the authenticity part also of the charisma that he was an extraordinary ordinary man and if you want a formula for becoming president of the united states that is it to be an extraordinary.
Ordinary man of course the silent majority can always make a surprise appearance so it's november 2016 the election is over and donald trump is president did you vote for him no did you vote for him no but you actually did vote for him and.
This is a silent majority and this plays a role in many many american elections people say they didn't vote for the winning candidate but in fact they did it's a hugely unknowable factor and it's happened in many many elections people keeping quiet about who they voted for and it could just happen this time round there's the famous paul and kale quote.
You know i can't believe nixon won i don't know anyone who voted for him the silent majority might rescue your campaign but nothing can kill it quicker than a bit of family trouble if you're going to be in the public eye then be prepared for an intense look at your personal life especially the unpleasant parts.
one small piece of advice that quintus has for his brother is to make sure that your friends and your family are rallied around you and genuinely want you to win he takes a view of family which might resonate today it's not just your.
Relations but it's your close friends it's your professional clients because ultimately the most damaging rumors that will come into the public eye about you will come from that circle and come from your family friends and relatives can quickly bring down any campaign but having a strong.
Dynastic family behind you can also make the difference in a presidential run i think we have to look at dynasty as a sales device it's a very very powerful persuader that's why in so many countries you have dynamicism much in india in pakistan and so forth there is a very large hereditary element a lot of which.
Is below the surface so senators and so forth are often the sons or grandsons of senators and it is something we don't really notice but you do see the same names cropping up right through american history so where has family made its biggest.
Mark on a u.s election well we only need look back to the year 2000 when albert arnold gore was up against george walker bush the gore family goes back to the very founding of america in 1776. al gore's father also called al gore was a congressman and then a senator who represented the great state of tennessee.
His son followed the exact same career path before he was picked as bill clinton's running mate thank you glad to be here but george w bush's father had been president and his grandfather had been a senator from connecticut and therefore his blood was even more blue so finally happy birthday sky king.
As for the bush family their american story goes all the way back to cape cod massachusetts in the mid 1600s not long after the landing of the mayflower and the pilgrim fathers by the early 20th century it had even joined forces with the well-known walker family whose name bestows the prestigious walker cup british team captain bangs out a long.
One essentially george w bush had an aristocratic background worthy of downton abbey and with his grandfather prescott marrying into the walker family the bushes had pulled off a power play worthy of game of thrones the election itself was also a very personal battle given that al gore had defeated george w.
Bush's father just eight years previously along with bill clinton vengeance was within reach of the bushes george w was able to fire up the christian conservative base in a way that his father never had but the bush name meant that he was still able to hold on to the establishment wing of the party that pops so clearly represented.
In what would be one of the tightest and most argued over elections of all time the bush name carried george jr over the finish line just about sort of stewart's inquiry hey a win as a win and so we had the first father-son president since john adams and john quincy adams.
now family celebrity money religion and the look may all get you pretty close to the white house but a truly successful candidate masters the message and what could be a better campaign message than a catchy slogan.
A good slogan of course is never going to do you any harm keep cool with coolidge is quite a good one he wasn't very cool but it it kind of stuck and it worked and then there's hoover's a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage doesn't trip off the tongue not greater for the vegetarian boat either.
I think the worst slogan ever is walter mondale's where's the beef i don't quite get it the campaign slogans can work precisely because of the vananity like i like ike i still like ike everyone's wild about harry others have been more utilitarian like reagan's are you better off now than you were four years ago slogans.
Like harry truman give him hell harry actually shouted at him by a member of the audience and became a campaign slogan barry goldwater was pretty unlikely to win against lyndon b johnson but you know if you want to be sure you're going to defeat your candidate then there's nothing better than running a smear.
Campaign goldwater's slogan that he used was you know in your heart he's right and the johnson team responded with you know in your gut he's nuts well which one's better obviously the second one warren harding had two election slogans both of which were fantastic because they were awful first we had the return.
To normalcy which means nothing and then we had [__] and cocktails which sounds very fun but actually it was uh talking about james cox who was his opponent he was running against and cox and cocktails was meant to be a bad thing because it was prohibition actually what we found out from warren harding was he was quite good at cops.
And cocktails really but that wasn't what he was trying to endorse here successful candidates for the us presidency usually have a clear message during their campaigns and messages don't come much clearer than abraham lincoln's vote yourself a farm in 1860. he backed up his promise with the homestead act that allowed americans.
Ownership of land at little or no cost four years later lincoln urged voters to stay on course with don't swap horses in the middle of a stream which is sound advice after the civil war general ulysses s grant took the high ground and urged voters to let us have peace but at the same time use the slogan.
Voters you shot as a pretty on-the-nose appeal to his fellow unionists when grover cleveland first ran in 1884 he was accused of fathering an illegitimate child and his detractors would chant ma ma where's my palm his supporters came back with gone to the white house hahaha william mckinley kept things simple with.
Patriotism protection and prosperity and four years later he pulled the same trick as lincoln and urged americans to let well enough alone and they did he won in a landslide in 1916 woodrow wilson ran on the phrase he kept us out of war of course the u.s would join world war one a year later but it had been true up.
To that point in 1924 it was keep cool with coolidge and in 1928 it was hoobit hoover but then during the depression fdr had to cheer the public up with the campaign song happy days are here again which was soon turned into happy days of beer again by supporters after prohibition was repealed.
In 1952 everyone jfk appealed to the public's optimism saying it was a time for greatness and we can do better it was all the way with lbj in 1964. richard nixon went super serious in 68 saying this time vote like your whole world depended on it jimmy carter.
Lightened the mood with the slogan that he was not just peanuts reagan cruised to victory with his rallying cry it's morning again in america george h.w bush kept up the successful reagan formula when he spoke of a bright future full of a thousand points of light.
But bill clinton brought things down to earth with it's the economy stupid four years later he was building a bridge to the 21st century george w bush popularized the term compassionate conservatism and barack obama kept things short simple and effective with yes we can.
I want to emphasize the purely rhetorical aspects of u.s government remember that in america at one time college students were trained in rhetoric if you want a way of summarizing the role of president teddy roosevelt call the presidency a bully pulpit what the president really is is the grand narrator his power is.
Not absolute his power is curtailed in all kinds of ways therefore what he needs to do is to create and sell a convincing narrative about who we are where we are and where we're going for example woodrow wilson used the phrase make the world safe for democracy in the first world war even w george bush he was good at the rhetoric sometimes with.
Malign consequences like the phrase excess of evil and very often of course this rhetoric means absolutely nothing which is part of the point for example bush's phrase the soft bigotry of low expectations is a marvelous phrase because it commits you to nothing but it sounds portentous and and powerful.
I think though that the best practitioner was fdr uh during the war the way he actually organized in fact his leadership of the war through phrase making arsenal of democracy a day which will live in infamy or his pre-war phase we have nothing to fear but fair the height of the depression these were really the if you like.
Central integuments of his leadership and of leadership itself if i want a phrase to summarize the art of being president i would say it is the art of rhetoric so there you have it all you need to know to win the u.s presidency good luck.
And always remember the words of ulysses s grant the art of war is simple enough find out where your enemy is get him as soon as you can strike him as hard as you can and keep moving on so so.
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