I think we can all agree that the slogan of Obama’s presidential campaign, Betting on America, is very unfortunate. Let’s gamble some more, really? After the debacle of 2008? The slogan sounds like the President isn’t taking us all very seriously and thinks it is all just a game.
This made me start remembering all of the unfortunate political slogans I have seen over the years. In the late nineties, Yeltsin ran his campaign under the slogan “Vote with your heart!” Which sounded like an admission that if one turned on one’s brain, one wouldn’t vote for this candidate.
The Russian semi-fascist party famously ran under the slogan of “We are for the Russians, we are for the poor.” The suggestion was, obviously, that this was not a party of those vile rich Jews. The fact that the party’s leader is Jewish made the whole thing even more hilarious.
The coalition of the right-wing parties in Russia (where the right-wingers are the good guys) ran a very expensive and a very unsuccessful campaign called “You are right!” That was such a heavy-handed pun that nobody took it – and the coalition – seriously.
Clarissa's Blog 
The slogan sounds like the President isn’t taking us all very seriously and thinks it is all just a game.(Clarissa)
It is a game. The problem is most people arent willing to learn the rules.
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Worst political slogan I’ve ever heard?
In mid 2009, the Liberal Party of Canada started acting like it was going to force an election. The slogan that they settled upon was: “The Liberal Party: We Can do Better.”
I suppose that they thought that the implication was that they could do better **than the government.** Unfortunately, it ended up sounding like a whiny apology for their own ineptitude: “I know that we’ve sucked so far, but we *can* do better! I swear!”
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This is the best. 🙂 Sounds like what bad students say when begging for an extension.
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My mind read “The Liberal Party: We Can do Better.” as “We Can Do Better than The Liberal Party”. If you hear the sentence, it seems to be 1 of correct interpretations.
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In the aftermath of the war of liberation in Zimbabwe, when the power was changed from the colonial regime to the Marxist, majority regime, there was a very vigorous battle regarding the legitimation of the new regime. The new government immediately began referring to the new government ministers with the honorific, Comrade, as well as renaming streets and cities to return to them culturally authentic identities. The culturally disenfranchised British regime immediately began fighting back by mocking everything the new regime did. Their renaming of “Rhodes and Founders” to “Heroes and Ancestors” received a new renaming, “Gooks and Spooks”. One minister, Ndabaningi Sithole, received a new name, “Rubber dingie”.
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To which Ndabaningi’s supporters could have pointed out that at least he’d be afloat *and* largely waterproof in the political cyclone. Not something to snort at during political turbulence, is it? 🙂
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Psychological warfare is an amazing thing. Its intention is never to supply a metaphor but to hit randomly and often so as to undermine the confidence of the other. By the end of fifteen years of war, the Rhodesians were very good at this.
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There was also this hilarious slogan in Ukraine : “There used to be 50 million Ukrainians. Now there are only 47 million. Let’s make love! ”
I can just imagine this dialogue. “Mommy, how did I get born?” “Well, I once saw this slogan, sweetie. . .”
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Some ape of a right wing politician, I think it might have been John Howard, said that families should have at least two children — one for themselves and one for Australia. I guess the minute the kid walk, one should bid [it] farewell. “You now belong to Australia.’
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Interestingly, there is still some psychological warfare going on concerning post-war, post-liberation Zimbabwe. I just did a search and found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX_tF1Ltawo
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I always wanted to ask someone from those parts — does one say Rhodesia when one’s in the area, or does one say Zimbawe? Or does the PC of each name depend on the company one is in? Also, is it pronounced (approximately) road-asia, or road-ee-shea? 🙂
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I refer to Rhodesia as the country that existed after “Southern Rhodesia” and prior to “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia”. Those are the historical names and the terms that were in currency. Very hard line political sticklers will say there was never such a country as “Rhodesia”, since it was an illegal regime. That’s like saying there is no such thing as America, since Britain never granted it sovereignty. (Or at least didn’t willingly — I’m not sure of the precise history.)
I personally have no qualms about using the term historically. But nowadays the country is Zimbabwe.
Also, if you want to pronounce it like the colonials do, you have to flatten your vowels a great deal, so that they almost disappear, and then speak through the corner of your mouth. That way you will be pronouncing the name correctly.
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The Mayor here, who is running for re-election, has come up with the slogan, “Together we can.” Top that for dumb!
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It is more positive and more concrete, at least, than “betting on America,” which really does not inspire confidence.
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Carolyn Ann sez:
Radical Feminism: Because girls need to understand who’s keeping them down. 😦
Feminism: The world is out there, ladies. Go get it! 🙂
I know which I prefer to tell my nieces.
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It’s never important to know what is keeping you down. Just start firing and when nothing is moving anymore, nothing is keeping you down.
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Current government tagline: We’re all in this together!
Except that patently, we’re not.
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Most confounding political slogan here for a cultural outsider: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg!!!”
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That sounds like a Republican justification for doing something awful — is it?
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It was the call for arms by the radical leftists in Calcutta right before the Communist party won the elections. The seventies were a very bloody time for us. Corpses everywhere, streets stained with blood. The slogan, however, keeps popping up every time a politician speaks of regime change and the need for sacrifices.
So not Republican at the face of it, but when you compare the totalitarian tendencies both groups showed…
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Charles Taylor has everybody beat in the slogan department. He ran on ‘He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him’.
He won, of course.
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Wow, that’s really quite a slogan. Brrrr.
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