Halloween is fast approaching, and every four years that means one frightening thing: some of the worst metaphors and similes and one-liners you’ll ever hear on the presidential campaign trail. It is, to mimic the worst of the rhetoric, scary like Halloween out there.
This year, let’s do something about it. Let’s resolve to shame our presidential and vice-presidential candidates into pledging no Halloween-themed rhetoric. How will we do that? Simple: With sunshine, the best disinfectant. Every time a candidate uses Halloween-based language we will say, no mas. Never again.
We begin this effort today by exposing the 19 worst Halloween-based one-liners in recent presidential campaign history. They’re listed in ascending order, meaning the number spot is the most repugnant. But they’re all quite horrible. Or, as the TelePrompTer might say, horror-ble.
19. Walter Mondale, 1984: “You’ve got four more days, is what you’ve got. … Somebody better tell them Halloween is over.”
18. George W. Bush, 2000: “We got rid of Halloween, but he’s [Gore] trying to scare the seniors at the voting booth. Not this time, and not this year.”
17. Dan Quayle, 1988: “He’s [Dukakis] taken off his Halloween mask.”
16. Walter Mondale, 1980: “He’s [Reagan] put on a whole variety of exciting new costumes, changing his mask every day,We’re going to take his mask off. And unlike the Halloween masks tonight, when that one’s off it’s scary.”
15. Michael Dukakis, 1988: “Give the people at the top the money and hope that a few crumbs fall off the table for the rest of us. It’s Halloween come early — a treat for the wealthiest 1 percent and a trick for the rest of us.”
14. George Bush, 1992: “You want to go the Clinton route, every day will seem like Halloween.”
13. Bob Dole, 1996: “All the kids are dressing up and doing scary things - that’s the way it is in the White House every day.”
12. George W. Bush, 2000: “Now, I know Halloween just ended, but there’s some scare tactics still going on in American politics.”
11. George H.W. Bush, 1984: ‘’It’s Halloween night and what our opponents have to offer is, I admit, very scary. Walter Mondale wants to raise taxes higher and higher and higher and higher. Walter Mondale’s favorite game is to play trick or trick.'’10. John Anderson, 1980: ‘’The specter of Ronald Reagan becoming President is not just something I conjured up on Halloween.'’
9. Geraldine Ferraro, 1984: “Throughout this campaign, he [Reagan] has disguised himself as a believer in arms control and a friend of the great Democratic leaders of the past, John Kennedy and Harry Truman. Now I know it’s almost Halloween, but anyone can see through that disguise.”
8. George H. W. Bush, 1992: “[if Clinton was elected] every day is going to be Halloween - fright and terror.”
7. John Kerry, 2004: “It’s Halloween. In the Bush-Cheney administration, that means tricks for the American people and treats for Halliburton.”
6. Al Gore, 1996: “No longer should we allow the House of Representatives to be a haunted House of Representatives led by Speaker Newt Gingrich. With your help, Texas can restore the control of the people’s House to the Democrats, the people’s party.”
5. Michael Dukakis, 1988: “It’s Halloween tonight. Mr. Bush is going to try and pass himself off as an environmentalist. No treat for us. That’s the biggest trick in the book, isn’t it?”
4. George H.W. Bush 1992: “Today is Halloween, our opponents’ favorite holiday. The only way that they can win is to literally scare America.”
3. Bill Clinton, 1992: “It’s Halloween. And when you talk about about crazy and scared, I’ll tell you, I think it’s crazy and scary to think about four more years of lost jobs, lost incomes, 100,000 people a month losing their health insurance, one in 10 Americans on food stamps, and not competing and winning in the global economy.”
2. Bob Dole, 1996: “Take off the mask. It’s not Halloween. Take off the mask! The economy is not good.”
1. Walter Mondale, 1984: “Today is Halloween and think what a Republican Halloween will be like. When you open the door and hear them shout tricks or treats, remember they’re describing the Republican tax plan. Treats for the very wealthy and big corporations and tricks for everyone else.'’
