Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 18, 2011

"Bring Us Together" was a political slogan popularized after the election of Republican candidate Richard Nixon as United States President in 1968. The text was derived from a sign which 13-year-old Vicki Lynne Cole stated that she carried at Nixon's rally in her home town of Deshler, Ohio, during the campaign. Richard Moore, a friend of Nixon, told the candidate's speechwriters that he had seen a child carrying a sign reading "Bring Us Together" at the Deshler rally. The speechwriters, including William Safire, began inserting the phrase into the candidate's speeches. Nixon mentioned the Deshler rally and the sign in his victory speech on November 6, 1968, adopting the phrase as representing his administration's initial goal—to reunify the bitterly divided country. Cole came forward as the person who carried the sign, and was the subject of intense media attention. Nixon invited Cole and her family to the inauguration, and she appeared (shown in video) on a float in the inaugural parade. The phrase "Bring Us Together" was used ironically by Democrats when Nixon proposed policies they considered divisive. Safire later expressed doubts that Cole's sign ever existed. (more...)

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