But even Jackson, as research by McCormick and Benson and others has shown, was not truly the first "democratic" candidate---that was William Henry Harrison. Lee Benson showed with detailed quantitative work that the 1828, 1832, and 1836 elections were still heavily based on religion and ethnicity, and that it wasn't until 1840 that a true economic vote occurred that might be called a vote of the "common man."
>> the populists did NOT come around until the 1880s out of the Grange movement. Jackson “appealed to the common man” vs. the elites would be accurate, but there was no such thing as “populist” in 1828 <<
OK, so we can just call Jackson the first successful “commoner” candidate, as long as we specify that he was not the “great” commoner. Works for me!
>> Lee Benson showed . . . it wasn’t until 1840 that a true economic vote occurred that might be called a vote of the “common man.” <<
With New York as a test case, right? Certainly an interesting hypothesis, even tho’ at 1st glance it strikes me as verging on Beardish economic determinism. But I’d need to study his methodology to make a professional judgment. And by the way, one has gotta wonder how the paradigm holds up for all the other states that year?
Anyway, Harrison and/or his Whig puppet masters sure did pull off a fast one in 1840, appealing to the “common man” even though WHH was the wealthy scion of Virginia planters — not mention his having another wealthy VA planter scion as his running mate. Sorta like Donald Trump having another reality TV celebrity, like a member of the Hilton Clan, for his veep nominee?