Yet, we will be told it's the worse mud slinging ever
Vice President Joe Biden lurched into all-too-familiar gaffe-territory when he went off the teleprompter and told the mostly African American Audience in Danville, Virginia, "[Romney] said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They're going to put y'all back in chains." Later in his speech, Biden assured the Virginia crowd, " "With you, and I mean this, with you we can win North Carolina again."
The Romney campaign responded quickly, pulling out what appears to be well-honed theme, "[Obama's] campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency," Romney said. "Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia, and the White House sinks a bit lower. This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like."
Along with kissing babies, campaign rallies, and unrealistic promises, we are assured that the media and casual observers will decry how the political discourse has sunk to a new level of mud slinging. Don't believe it for a moment, contested presidential political campaigns have always gone negative.
Political Historian Joseph Cummins, the author of "Anything for a Vote" said, "After researching every presidential contest from 1789 to 2004, my answer is that elections are not getting dirtier. They’re just as dirty as they have always been. "
Cummins provides the following examples:
- 1836: Congressman Davy Crockett accuses candidate Martin Van Buren of secretly wearing women’s clothing: “He is laced up in corsets!”
- 1864: Presidential candidate George McClellan describes his opponent, Abraham Lincoln, as “nothing more than a well-meaning baboon!”
- 1960: Former president Harry Truman advises voters that “if you vote for Richard Nixon, you ought to go to hell!”
The 1828 Election between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson descended into baseless charges, such as:
- John Quincy Adams was a pimp to the Czar of Russia; and
- Andrew Jackson was engaged in adultery.
1964 - Lyndon B. Johnson claimed challenger Barry Goldwater would start a nuclear war sending the world into "darkness" in the infamous Daisy Attack Ad.
The Presidential Election of 1800 was the first hotly contested race pitting John Adams against Thomas Jefferson. At the time candidates campaigned through surrogates. The campaign got ugly quick. Jefferson had others claim that Adams had a "hideous hermaphoditical character, which has neither the force nor firmness of a man." Adams' supporters called Jefferson "mean spirited, low lived fellow, the son of half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."
Anyone who tells you that political campaigns have grown too negative as if in earlier years we had a more elevated discourse about the issues, simply is ignorant of history and has a short memory. So long as negative campaigning works (and it does) - we will have it.
QUESTION: I believe that this is a problem that does not have a real solution. Do you agree? If not why not?
