In Ecclesiastics Solomon wrote, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecc.1:9, NIV). While surveying the historical presidential campaigns of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and modern day hopefuls, some tactics and strategies have changed, while other aspects are surprisingly quite similar. One difference is America's first three presidents did not personally campaign, rather political party newspapers, their media of the day, did both the debating of the issues and "mercilessly criticized their respective opposing candidates" on their behalf ("Thomas Jefferson: Campaigns and Elections"). Public opinion and the media held prominent roles in campaigning
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He was tired after the American Revolution and he looked forward to stepping out of public service. Instead he was lured out of retirement and encouraged to supervise the formation of the government of United States. When it was time to elect a president the American public campaigned for Washington to step into that role. He received letters from all over the world begging him to serve. The Constitution established the necessity of the creation of an Electoral College. In this first election, 10 of the 13 Colonies participated in the vote, as Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the Constitution and New York did not chose their electors in time. George Washington received 69 electoral votes in his first term and 132 in his second and he remains the only United States President to be unanimously elected-twice (Matuz, Harris, and Ross 9)! The weight of the job was not lost to him, "I feel very much like a man who is condemned to death does when the time of his execution draws nigh" he proclaimed (Roberts, Hammond, and Sulfaro 550-553). There was very little about this vote that seems similar to today's campaign. Perhaps one similarity would be Republican candidate Dr. Ben Carson who also expressed a similar reluctance to run by saying, "I really don’t want to do this, to be honest with you I was looking forward to a relaxing retirement, you know, with a beautiful home in Florida by …show more content…
It was largely focused on the role of the federal government and how much power it should have over peoples' lives. Another hot topic was the role of the United States abroad. John Adams, a Federalist, who had served as Washington's Vice President for eight years, won a narrow victory over Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican . This proved to be an interesting time in American history as the political process was structured so that the second place winner automatically became the Vice President. This was the only time in U.S. history that the president and vice president have represented opposing political parties. They fought amongst themselves for four years ("Thomas Jefferson: Campaigns and
He was tired after the American Revolution and he looked forward to stepping out of public service. Instead he was lured out of retirement and encouraged to supervise the formation of the government of United States. When it was time to elect a president the American public campaigned for Washington to step into that role. He received letters from all over the world begging him to serve. The Constitution established the necessity of the creation of an Electoral College. In this first election, 10 of the 13 Colonies participated in the vote, as Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the Constitution and New York did not chose their electors in time. George Washington received 69 electoral votes in his first term and 132 in his second and he remains the only United States President to be unanimously elected-twice (Matuz, Harris, and Ross 9)! The weight of the job was not lost to him, "I feel very much like a man who is condemned to death does when the time of his execution draws nigh" he proclaimed (Roberts, Hammond, and Sulfaro 550-553). There was very little about this vote that seems similar to today's campaign. Perhaps one similarity would be Republican candidate Dr. Ben Carson who also expressed a similar reluctance to run by saying, "I really don’t want to do this, to be honest with you I was looking forward to a relaxing retirement, you know, with a beautiful home in Florida by …show more content…
It was largely focused on the role of the federal government and how much power it should have over peoples' lives. Another hot topic was the role of the United States abroad. John Adams, a Federalist, who had served as Washington's Vice President for eight years, won a narrow victory over Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican . This proved to be an interesting time in American history as the political process was structured so that the second place winner automatically became the Vice President. This was the only time in U.S. history that the president and vice president have represented opposing political parties. They fought amongst themselves for four years ("Thomas Jefferson: Campaigns and