The current presidential candidates' slogans are rather tame — "Forward" for Barack Obama and "Believe in America" for Mitt Romney — but such was not always the case.

1. When Democrats sought to get Franklin Pierce elected president, they reminded voters of James Polk's win eight years earlier. The slogan: "We Polked you in 1844; we'll Pierce you in 1852."

2. "Sunflowers die in November" doesn't seem like a winning slogan in a presidential race, but it was. Franklin Roosevelt's campaign was referring to 1936 opponent Alf Landon's home state of Kansas and its official flower, which was featured on Landon's campaign buttons.

3. Candidates usually try to reassure the voters, but in 1997, Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor intimidated them instead, suggesting that a civil war might be reignited if he was not elected president. Taylor's slogan: "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him." (He won the election but was later arrested and convicted of war crimes.)

4. The 1884 U.S. election was by all accounts nasty. The Democratic candidate, New York Gov. Grover Cleveland, was considered an honest man who wasn't afraid to stand up to special interests. But it also came out in the campaign that he had had an affair years earlier, and that he was financially supporting the woman and their illegitimate son. The Republicans enjoyed yelling, "Ma! Ma! Where's my Pa?" But the Democrats got the last laugh after Cleveland won with the rejoinder, "Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

5. Some unglamorous Illinois politicians have tried to turn that deficit into an advantage. Gov. Richard Ogilvie used the slogan "Charisma isn't everything," but the voters were more charmed by Dan Walker in 1972. The grandmotherly looking Dawn Clark Netsch described herself as "more than just a pretty face," but she was less than a match for incumbent Gov. Jim Edgar in 1994.

6. When ethically challenged Edwin Edwards ran against former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke for Louisiana governor in 1991, the bumper stickers included "Vote for the crook — it's important" and "Vote for the lizard, not the wizard." (The lizard won.)

7. The second spot on the ticket rarely gets much respect, but Grover Cleveland's running mate, former Indiana Gov. Thomas Hendricks, surely had reason to complain when a sloganeer penned, "We'll shout for our man and his important appendix! We'll whoop'er up lively for Cleveland and Hendricks!"

8. Some slogans sound like they were doomed from the start. In 1952, Adlai Stevenson — facing World War II hero Gen. Dwight Eisenhower — went into battle with the jarring, passive-aggressive "You Never Had it So Good." And in 1968, Democrats for Humphrey asked, "Who but Hubert?"

9. It's a good thing for politicians that campaign slogans have an expiration date. Woodrow Wilson's 1916 claim "He kept us out of war" lasted only until April 6, 1917.

10. Barack Obama was the "hope and change" candidate in 2008, reflecting the optimistic American view that change is a good thing. But in 1900, President William McKinley won re-election with the opposite slogan: "Let well enough alone."

Mark Jacob is a deputy metro editor for the Tribune; Stephan Benzkofer is the newspaper's weekend editor.

mjacob@tribune.com

sbenzkofer@tribune.com

SOURCES: "Gaming the Vote," by William Poundstone; "Governor Richard Ogilvie: In the Interest of the State," by Taylor Pensoneau; "Presidents," by Neil A. Hamilton; "Elections in Dangerous Places," edited by David Gillies; "Posters, Propaganda, and Persuasion in Election Campaigns Around the World," by Steven A. Seidman; "Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections," by Larry J. Sabato and Howard R. Ernst; "Presidential Campaigns," by Paul F. Boller Jr.; "Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms," by Robert North Roberts, Scott John Hammond and Valerie A. Sulfaro