A front porch campaign is a low-key electoral campaign used in American politics in which the candidate remains close to or at home to make speeches to supporters who come to visit. The candidate largely does not travel around or otherwise actively campaign. The successful presidential campaigns of James A. Garfield in 1880, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and William McKinley in 1896 are perhaps the best-known front porch campaigns.
McKinley's opposing candidate, William Jennings Bryan, gave over 600 speeches and traveled many miles all over the United States to campaign, but McKinley outdid this by spending about twice as much money campaigning. While McKinley was at his Canton, Ohio, home conducting his "front-porch campaign", Mark Hanna was out raising millions to help with the campaign.
Another president that had been known for his front porch campaign was Warren G. Harding during the presidential election of 1920.
The concept remains in use in American politics, and was used in June 2008 by U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions to describe his low-key renomination bid in Alabama's Republican primary where he received 92 percent of the vote. It could also be applied to the 2010 campaign of South Carolinian Alvin Greene, who captured the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination without appearing to campaign at all.
Famous quotes containing the words front, porch and/or campaign:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.””
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Now, Mr. President, we don’t intend to trouble you during the campaign but after you are elected, then look out for us!”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)