The GOP gathered in Tampa this week to nominate their candidate for the Republican Party ticket in the 2012 presidential election, and the Democrats await their turn in Charlotte, N.C., next week. The mad theater of campaigns, protests, rallies, and conventions that is our modern political process is not a recent phenomenon. In fact, going back through decades of photographs,
it’s clear that candidates on the stump relied on many of the same strategies. Supporters and
opponents vied in surging crowds, and passions flamed then as now.
In this photo, from Sept. 11, 1924, Colonel John Coolidge, father of President Calvin Coolidge, inspects the Coolidge-Dawes van before the start of the now famous 1924 Coolidge-Dawes Lincoln Tour, a political parade from Coolidge’s birthplace in Plymouth, Vt., to the Pacific Coast. More than 5 million people turned out to view the caravan as it traversed 6,500 miles. More than
100,000 automobiles participated in the motor escort.
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LANE TURNER and LISA TUITE