Wednesday, January 23

Dirty Politics

Lots of people have been complaining lately about how nasty the race for the Democratic presidential nomination has become. Indeed, the candidates have started raking up the mud: Obama has been talking about Clinton's sell-out days on the WalMart board of directors, as well as her mean husband; and Clinton has been pointing out how Obama started his career working for a slum-lord who is currently under indictment for fraud, and that he's gay for Ronald Reagan.

Everyone is surprised at the lack of civility in all this.

Honestly, the only thing that surprises me about it is that everyone is so surprised. Politicians saying nasty things about each other is nothing new, but it seems we're always shocked in this smug, Puritan way.

I did a cursory internet search on the history of dirty politics, and stumbled on some interesting examples from America's venerable statesmen of the past:

In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson was accused of favoring the teaching of "murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest" by his opponent, the incumbent President John Adams. In response, Jefferson secretly hired the writer James Callendar to call Adams a "repulsive pedant" and "a hideous hermaphroditical character."

In 1828, when John Quincy Adams was running against General Andrew Jackson. Adams was nicknamed "The Pimp" by the Jackson campaign, based on a rumor that he had once coerced a young woman into an affair with a Russian nobleman when he had been American ambassador to Russia. In response, Adams' supporters came out with a pamphlet which read: "General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute brought to this country by British solders! She afterwards married a mulatto man with whom she had several children of which number General Jackson is one!!"

Martin Van Buren (one of the founders of the modern Democratic party) was accused of wearing women’s corsets by Davy Crockett, who also referred to him as "Aunt Matty" during the 1836 election.

James Buchanan, who had a congenital condition that caused his head to tilt to the left, was accused of have unsuccessfully tried to hang himself.

Abraham Lincoln reportedly had stinky feet. His opponents also made fun of his "slang-whanging stump speaker" style, newspapers made fun of his looks ("a horrid looking wretch"), and cartoonists pictured him in racist scenarios. One from Georgia proclaimed that Lincoln planned to "force inter-marriage between children," and that "within 10 years or less our children will be the slaves of Negroes."

At the 1912 Republican National Convention, Teddy Roosevelt, wearing a sombrero and smoking a cigar, referred to William Howard Taft, the sitting President and Roosevelt’s former vice president, as "a rat in a corner."

In the 1896 contest between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan, the New York Times, which supported McKinley, published a series of articles in which prominent doctors discussed quite seriously whether Bryan was crazy. One expert wrote: "I don’t think Bryan is ordinarily crazy … but I should like to examine him as a degenerate."

President Lyndon Johnson, seeking his first elective term after taking over for the assassinated JFK, running against Barry Goldwater in 1964. Johnson's operatives, in close contact with the White House, put out a Goldwater coloring book for children, featuring pictures of Goldwater dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes.

Compared to the stunts of the past, this year's candidates seem like they're being pretty nice to each other. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say I think the name-calling is valuable to the democratic process. America's attention span is well-known to be breathtakingly short, thanks to MTV and CNN and all that. Maybe a little old-fashioned fireworks in the political process will keep us interested.

by Cooper at 5:27 PM    |