A successful campaign, phrase or catchy sales slogan, like a good joke, must have a ring of truth to it.

Otherwise, it just does not work.

“The buck stops here,” worked for President Harry Truman in 1948 because old Harry took responsibility for his actions, like dropping the atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II in the Pacific and save American lives.

He even had the saying printed on a sign on his Oval Office desk.

The equivalent today would be President Joe Biden, who takes responsibility for nothing, campaigning on a slogan that reads, “The buck stops there.”

It would be accompanied by arrows pointing everywhere but at him.

Truman was followed in the White House by World War II hero Gen. Dwight D, Eisenhower who’s 1952 campaign slogan was simply, “I like Ike.” People did and Ike was elected and re-elected.

John F. Kennedy thought big. And when he ran for president, his slogan was simply, “A time for greatness.”

“All the way with LBJ,” was President’ Lyndon B. Johnson’s slogan in 1964 when he sought election in his own right after succeeding President John F. Kennedy who had been assassinated.

While the slogan worked, his administration, mired in the Vietnam War, did not, and he did not seek reelection. The popular and charismatic Kennedy proved to be a tough act to follow.

The ever-optimistic President Ronald Reagan was as good at sloganeering as he was at governing. “It’s morning in America,” he declared in 1984 as he raised people’s confidence in the country after four dismal years of President Jimmy Carter.

Carter four years earlier had been elected running with the slogan, “A leader for a change.” Four years later, he could have been running for reelection on a slogan reading, “It’s evening in America.”’  The voters agreed with him and voted for Reagan.

The was the period when, dealing with Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev over a Cold War agreement, Reagan said, “Trust but verify.”  Gorbachev was doubly impressed because the phrase came from an old Russian proverb.

That was only topped when Reagan, building on JFK’s famous 1963, Soviet challenging “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech (I am a Berliner) , said at the Berlin Wall in 1987, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Berliners cheered Kennedy in 1963 and their children cheered Reagan 24 years later, and the wall came down.

Just as Reagan built on Kennedy, so did Trump build in Reagan. He took Reagan’s “Morning in America” and in 2016 turned it into “Make America Great Again.”

And while Democrat Hillary Clinton mocked Trump and insulted his MAGA supporters by calling them “deplorables,” the slogan worked, and Trump was elected.

Biden, in categorizing the people who support Trump in 2024 as MAGA “semi-fascists,” is making the same mistake that Hillary Clinton did, and that is insulting half of the Americans in the country.

Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by largely campaigning out his basement in his Wilmington, Del. home during the Covid pandemic,  and also because he had the fawning establishment media in his hip pocket.  That is still the case.

And if Biden had a campaign slogan in 2020, and he had several, nobody can remember what they were. He has stopped talking about Bidenomics as food, energy, gas, housing and rent costs continue to soar with no end in sight.

He has even dropped his “Build Back Better” slogan since little is being built, nothing is better, and the country is being invaded by illegal immigrants.

These include many of whom are criminals, including the illegal immigrants who are charged with the murders of college student Laken Riley in Georgia and Ruby Garcia in Michigan, which Trump has made into a campaign issue.

Trump calls illegal immigration crime, “Joe Biden’s border bloodbath.”

How’s that for a campaign slogan?

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

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