Welcome to Whistle Stop, a podcast of Campaign Curiosities.

I'm John Dickerson, host of Face the Nation.

We're going back to 1840.

Get your booze, your hard cider.

Prop open the door of the log cabin and return with me to that raucous campaign

where the wig party showed that they had

learned all the lessons from their rivals, the Democratic Party. They learned how to tickle the public

fancy or make the so-called hurrah appeal as presidential elections turned into a competition

for the affections of all white men.

You might notice some of this happening in today's politics,

where candidates appeal to the popular sentiment rather than perhaps the virtues of the underlying issue.

We spent time in 1840 in a previous episode of Whistle Stop with William Henry Harrison,

the Whig Victor of this contest, who became the first candidate to be elected on the umbrage

ticket, turning a slight or a perceived slight, into political gold.

Now it's time to learn about Democrat Martin Van Buren, political strategist from New York, old Kinderhook, as they called him, the name of the town he was from.

Van Buren had helped Andrew Jackson get elected in 1828 and helped form the new Democratic Party.

But in 1840, fell victim to the kind of organization and politicking he'd done so well,

including in this campaign, becoming the target of perhaps one of the best,

certainly one of the most baroque negative attacks in campaign history.

Is that okay by you?

Good.

Because among other things for which this campaign can be credited,

...