Harding Campaign Song

DESCRIPTION: "I'm from Ohio, dear old Ohio, Oh, there's nothing quite so fine As that Buckeye state of mine." "It's the land of Grant and Sherman... And you'll hear from President Harding before this year is through." The only man who can stop it might be Jimmie Cox
AUTHOR: Ernest R. Ball (source: Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection)
EARLIEST DATE: 2010 (Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection); presumably written 1920
KEYWORDS: political nonballad
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1920 - Warren G. Harding of Ohio defeats James M. Cox, also of Ohio, for president
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection, p. 55, "Harding Campaign Song" (1 text)
NOTES [214 words]: Seven men who were considered to be Ohioans have been President: Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding. (William Henry Harrison is also sometimes listed as an Ohioan, because he lived there when elected President, but he lived everywhere...). All of them, except Harrison, were Republicans -- and every Republican who became President after Lincoln and before Calvin Coolidge was from Ohio, except Chester A. Arthur (who was a vice president who succeeded to the Presidency and did not seek re-election) and Theodore Roosevelt (who also succeeded to the Presidency, although he did win re-election). Republicans had never won the Presidency without winning Ohio.
Since Republicans felt they had to win Ohio, their best bet for winning the Presidency was to nominate an Ohioan. Thus, by the late nineteenth century, it was Republican tradition -- almost a Republican law -- to do just that. Warren G. Harding was the last of the Ohio winners -- even though, to this day (2022), no Republican has ever won the Presidency without winning Ohio. Democrats have done it a few times (starting with Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892; also FDR in 1944 and others since), but not Republicans. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: Grim055

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