Today’s presidential campaigns are fought on Twitter. In 1940, they used...buttons.

Today, politicians instantly release their negative campaign messages on Twitter. This is what passionate rapid response looks like:

But long before Twitter, there was another means of negative campaigning on the fly: buttons. And during the 1940 presidential campaign, Republican Wendell Willkie didn’t pull any punches against incumbent (and third-term candidate) Franklin Roosevelt. That meant buttons like these:

These buttons kicked off a new age of campaigning, and they also symbolized the rancor of an unusual election that changed American politics forever.

Wendell Willkie was an unlikely Republican candidate for president — like Ben Carson, Donald Trump, and Carly Fiorina today, he never held elected office before. Unlike those candidates, he came from the relatively liberal wing of the party. His candidacy largely rested on opposition to Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, criticism of military leadership, and the issue of Roosevelt’s unprecedented possible third term.

Running against an incumbent during wartime was always an uphill battle, and that may be one of the reasons Willkie was extremely aggressive with his merchandise, especially for a less merch-heavy campaign era.

In August 1940, when the New Yorker profiled the Willkie campaign’s merchandising and button operation, it mentioned novel options like Willkie neckties, barbecues, cowbells, and even chewing gum.

But the buttons were always the real stars. Willkie made an unprecedented 8 million buttons at foundries across the country, declaring messages winnowed from suggestions by Willkie supporters. These buttons left Roosevelt’s button corps in the dust. Since campaign buttons traditionally came out just before a campaign, FDR’s button operation was vastly outmatched by Willkie’s.

Officially, these Willkie buttons only included three phrases: “We Want Willkie,” “Willkie and McNary,” and “No Third Term.” However, numerous, closely linked buttons were released by local committees, like the popular Willkie Clubs, as well as other private parties — sort of like suspiciously on-message Super PACs, but with buttons.

The flurry of buttons caused Life magazine to declare the 1940 campaign the showiest affair in 100 years (it also said campaign officials were responsible for 30 million buttons in total — a figure that probably includes all the Willkie buttons).

At Willkie rallies, button hawkers were a familiar sight. Some of the buttons they sold were funny:

And, on occasion, even included sexual innuendo:

There were also puns for Willkie:

This flurry of campaign buttons included, most interestingly, ones that responded to ephemeral “news of the day” questions. One NPR reader noted a button that said, “That’s right Franklin, Spinach is Spinach.” The reference was to a well-known New Yorker cartoon in which a daughter turned away broccoli by saying, “I say it’s spinach and I say to hell with it” (the intent was to say that Willkie would tell it like it is).

There were buttons that said Roosevelt’s WPA built outhouses, ones that marked campaign funds raised, and even meta-buttons, like the one that read, “100,000,000 buttons can’t be wrong.”

Of course, the buttons weren’t enough to get Willkie elected — he lost the popular vote 54.74 percent to 44.78 percent, and the electoral vote 449 to 82. Still, they marked a change in campaign culture, blanketing the country with a campaign message in new ways.

The button-making fever also reflected the unusual circumstances of Roosevelt’s third term, which later resulted in the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two terms in office. These buttons are a souvenir of the intensity of the debate.

So what happened to all those buttons? Some belong to collectors, but the Transportation Board in New York City disclosed another use, after the election was over and Willkie fervor had faded: In a single day, 220 people used their old Willkie buttons as fake subway tokens in the turnstile.