Mudslinging is as Old as Mud

Every election cycle, particularly in presidential election years, it seems like we hear talking heads, news anchors, analysts and editorialists say, “this is turning out to be the worst, most negative campaign of all time.”

They love to point out that each year, things get hotter and hotter. We hear some politicians and pundits call out for a “return to civility.” A return? Was politics every really “civil?" Do they not know their history, ignore their history or count on the ignorance of the people? 

Negative campaigning and mudslinging are a part of politics and always have been.  

Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Some of it reads like a negative ad against King George: “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”

One of the early negative campaigns was between friends and rivals Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They used the press to throw a lot of nasty barbs at each other as they each campaigned for the presidency. 

Adams was called a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Jefferson was said to be "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father." It was said that if Jefferson became President, “murder, rape, robbery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced.”  

In the campaign between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, Jackson’s mother was accused of being a prostitute, and his wife an adulteress, among other things. 

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson ran one of the most successful negative ads of all time, where he portrayed his opponent Barry Goldwater as a crazed warmonger.

The famous “Daisy Girl” television ad showed a toddler minding her own business picking daisies and being really cute, only to be vaporized in a huge explosion.  LBJ’s voice announced, “We must either love each other, or we must die.” I guess he chose “death.” Johnson later proved he wasn’t only a great mudslinger, he was a great bomb slinger too. Few Presidents dropped as many bombs as Lyndon Johnson. 

Rand Paul was accused by his opponent of “praying to a false God” (Aqua Buddha, whatever that is). Liddy Dole accused Kay Hagan of being an atheist (the horror!). A couple hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson was also accused of being an atheist (but not by Liddy Dole). The atheist accusation keeps popping up. 

We’ve seen some negative ads come from lobby groups on behalf of a candidate. During the ’04 election, the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” went after John Kerry’s military record, and “Moveon.org” attacked George Bush. 

President Obama was accused of being born outside of the United States. President Bush was accused of orchestrating the September 11 attacks so he could get his hands on more oil. President Grover Cleveland was accused of being an illegitimate child. Dukakis and Huckabee were soft on convicted criminals. Reagan was senile, Bush was a moron version of Adolph Hitler, Obama was Stalin, and this can just keep going and going and going.

“Fascist,” “Communist,” “Nazi,” “racist” and “evil” are all words used regularly to describe various American politicians. 

There are lots of lies, or stretched truths, from both sides during campaigns. The best we can do is consider the source.

Do you really think everything coming from groups like “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” or “Moveon.org” is credible?  We live in an age of information, it’s not very hard to check into things, but we need to remember to consider those sources too. 

When Gabrielle Giffords was shot by a mad man, people automatically tried to deflect responsibility to the hot rhetoric between politicians. He wasn’t an insane individual, he was a product of our system. He was driven to murder and madness by negative political ads, he was a victim of the faceless entity called “society.”

Our “society” has become really good at deflecting blame. You can blame his mom, dad, Sunday school teacher, the kid that stole his lunch money or society in general; I’ll blame Jared Lee Loughner. 

After the shooting, President Obama gave a nice speech on returning to civility. It was inspiring, but like other politicians, he never seems to practice what he preaches. It was soon back to business as usual. Republicans want you to die, Democrats want you to be dependent zombies. 

As for a “return to civility,” we should remember that Aaron Burr killed his rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Andrew Jackson was involved in a few duels himself (of course, duels were considered “civil” in those days). 

Just before the Civil War, South Carolina Democrat Congressman Preston Smith Brooks beat Republican Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death with a cane in the Senate Chamber. After Sumner was unconscious, Brooks continued the beating until his cane broke.

Brooks’ colleague Laurence M. Keitt kept people from stopping the beating by drawing his pistol and threatening to shoot anyone that interfered (even after Sumner was unconscious and the beating continued, Keitt kept the would be rescuers at bay). “Let them be!” Keitt was later censured and Brooks was fined three-hundred dollars. But his supporters sent him hundreds of canes to beat down more Yankees. 

Politics isn’t a game for the thin-skinned, so when a politician or candidate feels like they’re being picked on (Palin and Obama play the victim card quite often), we should attempt to keep it all in historical perspective. It’s not new, it’s not worse than ever, it’s politics.