The Selling of a President

In the just-published “Every Bite a Delight and Other Slogans,” Laurence Urdang and Janet Braunstein list 5,000 advertising slogans used through the years from Maxwell House’s familiar “Good to the last drop” to not-so familiar ones such as Bi-Car Gum’s “An agreeable chewing digestant” and the American Poultry Advocate’s “Practical poultry paper for practical poultry people.”

Based on a scan of the book, the most advertised product from Southern California--if one uses the sheer number of slogans as criteria--is Richard M. Nixon.

Nixon’s successful 1952 vice presidential bid had the slogan “Let’s clean house with Ike and Dick.” In 1960, there was “Experience counts: vote Nixon-Lodge for a better America,” “The nation needs Richard M. Nixon,” “No substitute for experience” and “My Pick is Dick” in Nixon’s failed presidential quest against John F. Kennedy.

“Nixon’s the One,” “Bring us together,” “The new Nixon” and “Forward Together” were the slogans that helped elect Nixon and former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew in 1968, with “Nixon Now More than Ever,” “The nation needs fixin’ with Nixon” and “Four More Years” the themes of his successful 1972 campaign.

Of course, not all Nixon slogans the authors list were favorable. Kennedy’s campaign used “Nix on Nixon.” Then there was “Would you let your sister marry this man?” and “Nixon + Spiro = Zero” in 1968. From 1972 came “Would you buy a used car from this man?”

Speaking of Slogans

Los Angeles still has an economic development campaign titled “L.A. Means Business,” even though the April riots put a dent in it.

Urdang and Braunstein’s book contains a slogan once used to promote Los Angeles that hasn’t been heard in some time: “Where nature helps industry most.”

Not exactly the kind of slogan one wants for an area that just went through the biggest earthquake in 40 years.

Stephen King It’s Not

It was a dark and stormy cash-flow analysis.

Last week, the business school at UC Berkeley sent out its California Management Review with a note attached saying that it “arrives just in time for summer beach reading.”

A tantalizing sample: “In another case, a high-technology composites design house chose to expand out of protected Class 1 custom aerospace market into the competitive Class 2 automotive adhesives business.

The results?

They were summarized cryptically three years later by the company’s strategic planner: ‘Every time we step off our mountaintop we get slaughtered.’ ”

Briefly . . .

No doubt he’s already cut out the fat: The chief operating officer of Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles being quoted about the dire consequences of the state budget crisis is named Terry Bonecutter . . . Seems like we heard this 30 years ago: “The emergence of videophones will reshape our entire culture, and the way we do business, more than any other technological trend in the 1990s,” predicts the Trends Journal newsletter . . . Now that’s synergy: The July 10 edition of Time Warner’s “Entertainment Weekly” includes an article defending controversial rap music stars, including “Cop Killer” performer (and Time Warner star) Ice-T.