Political slogans seem so easy to concoct:

Building a strong America!
Leadership for the future!
Prosperity for America's families!
Moving our country forward!
Let's bring people together!

It's easy to dismiss slogans as empty, interchangeable homilies. They do, after all, seem stocked with endless recombinations of the same few terms--strength, new, tomorrow, united, leadership, future, integrity, family, America, prosperity, people....

But I wonder if we should dismiss political slogans so lightly. For one thing, though we tend to think of political slogans in connection with campaigns, they actually run through our public life. That's probably because politics doesn't end when a campaign does. In America, governing is just as political as running for office. Lawmakers and executives have to concern themselves relentlessly with garnering votes, building coalitions, mustering public support, and all the rest of it--it all goes with the job. Thus, our military campaigns have brand names: Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Desert Storm. So do our battle strategies: Shock-and-Awe, winning-hearts-and-minds. Legislation comes to us with handles: No Child Left Behind. So do whole sets of programs and policies. In my own city of San Francisco, one approach to dealing with the entire problem of the homeless is gathered under the simple slogan "Care Not Cash."

You say you're so preoccupied with substance that you never notice slogans? Let's put it to the test. How many of the slogans on the left can you match up to the politicians on the right?

No child left behind.	Herbert Hoover
A kinder, gentler nation.	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Nothing to fear but fear itself...	George H. W. Bush
Ask not what your country can do for you...	Bill Clinton
It's the economy, stupid.	Ronald Reagan
Speak softly and carry a big stick.	George W. Bush
Are you better off than you were four years ago?	Teddy Roosevelt
A chicken in every pot...	John F. Kennedy

See? You have been paying attention!

(P.S.: If you skipped a few chapters of United States history, answers to this little quiz follow at the end of this column.)

I don't say any of this is new, nor is it peculiar to America. Way back in ancient Rome, Cato the Elder rallied support for his favorite foreign policy initiative by endlessly shouting the simple, brutal slogan: "Carthage must be destroyed!"

Here in America, history buffs know the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" from the presidential election of 1840, a seminal election, even though it featured a couple of clashing nobodies, because it marked the birth of the political campaign as we know it today. Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison clamored for public attention with unprecedented gimmicks and hoopla that year: They issued campaign buttons, sold souvenirs, mounted rallies, staged parades, and threw raucous street parties at which whiskey and hard cider were distributed while campaign workers beat drums and sang jingles, all striking innovations in the art of winning public office.

The zaniest gimmick was the practice of rolling huge balls covered with slogans from town to town (which gave rise to the expression "keep the ball rolling"). The slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was an attempt to tap Harrison's image as a military hero--he'd won the Battle of Tippecanoe against Native American leader Tecumseh, and Harrison's soldiers therefore knew him as "Old Tippecanoe." At the same time, through syntax alone, this slogan managed to sell Harrison's running mate--U.S. senator John Tyler of Virginia--as a thrilling bonus to the ticket, not unlike the free steak knives you get if you buy the salad shooter.

Slogan poetics
As a literary form, slogans don't get much respect. That's probably because they often seem crafted to push buttons without hitting nerves. My favorite example turned up in San Francisco's recent mayoral election: "Together we can." Who could be against "together," or "we," or "can"? It's warm, it's muscular, it's empty. Or is it?

Actually, even this slogan deserves a second look. I'm sure this candidate's handlers judged that San Francisco voters were fed up with divisions on the board of supervisors, fed up with clamorous disputes between the board and the mayor, and fed up with the city's homeless problem, which some have called insoluble. The other candidate was presenting himself as a leftist, which has often been attacked as pushing Us versus Them. So each of the words in that slogan takes aim at something in the political landscape. Together suggests that the other candidate is divisive. We lobs one at the Us-vs.-Them spirit ostensibly represented by the other candidate. Can takes a swing at can't (that is, at the idea that the problem can't be solved).

The thing is, slogans aren't epigrams. They don't succeed or fail on their wit, pith, or poetry. There's some other standard operating. And some standard is operating, make no mistake. If political slogans were all alike, they'd all be equally successful, which clearly isn't the case. Some slogans demonstrate strength by proliferating. They get picked up by people outside a candidate's own circle--commentators, talk show hosts, columnists, people on the street. They enter the language.

But why? What makes the difference?