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To: Verginius Rufus
Yup. Besides the "Rum, Romanism & Rebellion" soundbite from the campaign, there were:

Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine.
The Continental Liar from the State of Maine!

And ......

Maw! Maw! Where's my Paw?
Gone to the White House! Haw haw haw!

The latter referred to Grover's fathering a child out of wedlock.

Jingles were a very important part of political campaigns back around this time - when my grandparents were born. Some would be set to a tune and published as single pages of sheet music, with little artistic embellishments around the edges.

The R R & R quote wasn't really a jingle. It was one line in a longwinded bloviation by one of the after-dinner speakers at a NYC fundraiser. Blaine & the other Republicans had had their brains so thoroughly numbed by the boring speech that they didn't hear the slur on Catholics, or else they would have certainly repudiated it right there, as they knew how important Catholic sensitivities were to keeping NY State in the GOP column to counteract the Solid South. But a member of the MSM ("newspaper reporter" in those days) was listening intently for anything that might be used to bring down the GOP. And he certainly found it. Huge headlines everywhere the next day.

7 posted on 08/28/2019 1:11:22 PM PDT by CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC ("Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt" - Pr. Herbert Hoover)
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To: CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC
A cartoon from 1884 shows a young woman holding the baby (supposed to be Grover's child) but I think the child was then about 10 years old. Apparently she was an alcoholic and had had affairs with several men so it wasn't clear who the real father was, but Grover was the only one who was single so he assumed responsibility. It would be interesting if someone could track down a descendant of the child and do a DNA test to determine if Grover was really the biological father.

Grover Cleveland was still a bachelor when he was elected but married during his first term. Supposedly the Baby Ruth candy bar was named in honor of his daughter Ruth.

9 posted on 08/28/2019 2:43:01 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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