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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock Ncwi Staff Writer
As the emphasis in presidential elections has shifted from the work of political parties to the personalities of the candidates, voter participation has decreased, says Keith Melder, curator in the division of political history with the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History.
At the county library’s second “First Friday” program for the year, Melder showed slides from the museum’s collection of American political memorabilia. The slides are among the many illustrations in Melder’s recently published “Hail to the Candidate: Presidential Campaigns from Banners to Broadcasts".
Melder noted that while voter participation has fallen off from about 80 percent in the 1840 election through the rest of the 19th century to the 1920s to 50 percent in the 1980s, some common themes evident in earlier campaigns are still present in this year’s election.
In 1840 the Jacksonian Democrats said Whig candidate William Henry Harrison favored log cabins and hard cider. The Whig party used these symbols in Harrison’s successful campaign, building hundreds of log cabins as campaign headquarters buildings and passing out hard cider, Melder said.
The log cabin, representing the candidate of the common man, was a symbol used in other campaigns and today has been replaced by the outhouse as a symbol of the candidate
86.3%