The Obama campaign needs to toughen up a little.
Before you think that I'm an evil Republican troll posting information to diminish the impact of the Obama campaign's steps to fight McCain's absurd attacks, let me reassure you — I'm not. I drove 900 miles roundtrip with my first-time voter son to see Obama speak in our state of Montana. I stood in the crowd at Berlin as he addressed 200,000 of our European brothers and sisters. My husband and my son are rabid Kossacks, and have been for years. Obama is the best man to win the presidency, and gives me hope that this country might once again become the shining beacon for freedom that it once was.
But still...
Today one of Obama spokeman Bill Burton called John McCain's campaign against Obama "the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern presidential campaign history."
Really? The SLEAZIEST? How modern is modern?
Does anybody remember Sen. Edmund Muskie? In 1972, Democratic presidential front-runner Muskie broke down in tears of ager when Rove mentor Donald Segretti planted false stories in a New Hampshire newspaper that accused Muskie's wife of being a cigarette-smoking, foul-mouthed drunk, along with forging letters on fake Muskie campaign letterhead and spreading false stories about the sex lives of candidates. Segretti was sentenced to six months in federal prison for distributing illegal campaign material. Incidentally, Segretti was co-chair of John McCain's campaign in Orange County in 2000.
McCain was victim of some of the "dirty tricks" inspired by Segretti, and taken to a new level by Baby Face Rove, when he got within shooting distance of winning the 2000 GOP primary in South Carolina.
"Rove's operation proceeded to target McCain with false stories: McCain was a stoolie for his captors in the Hanoi Hilton (this from a lunatic self-promoting Vietnam "veteran"); McCain fathered a black daughter out of wedlock (a despicable reference to McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter); Cindy McCain's drug 'abuse'; and even McCain's 'homosexuality.' "
So. McCain learned his sleazy tricks from a master.
I would love it if campaigns would stick to the issues. But would that REALLY be politics in America?
A Quick Look Back at Politics in Modern America
2004
John Kerry, who had publicly refused to conduct what has become known as "negative politics," learned about dirty politics the hard way when the GOP coordinated a series of attacks that made this war hero look like a lying coward.
1988
Rewind to the George Bush Sr. campaign of 1988. Bad-boy media manipulator Lee Atwater (rest his soul) created an aggressive media campaign that painted Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis as being soft on crime. Willie Horton, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in prison, convicted rape while on a weekend furlough program supported by Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts.
1972
Let's get back to Tricky Dick. I was a kid when Nixon was president, and I remember watching his resignation with my parents. But until researching this diary, I had no idea how really bad Richard Nixon was.
In 1971, Nixon asked his staff to find the names of Jewish contributors to the Democratic party, and to "go after them like a son of a bitch," using IRS intimidation.
Nixon also reacted favorably to Watergate jailbird Bob Haldeman's suggestion that the republican secretly fund an independent black presidential candidate in 1972 to siphon off Democratic votes. They discussed ways to split the Democrats that included secretly pumping $5 million in Republican money into anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy's campaign.
A Lengthier Tour
Let's take a Swift-boat tour of presidential politics in America throughout our short — and muddy — history.
In truth, the ONLY presidential election that did not contain some level of negative politics was our first, when George Washington was the only candidate. After that, political parties began to emerge and attack each other energetically.
In retrospect, many of the accusations are downright humorous — although I'm sure it didn't seem so to candidates at the time.
Take a peek:
• 1800: Thomas Jefferson v. John Adams. This was only the third election ever held in this country. Republicans paid hack writer James Callendar to attack the incumbent Adams, calling him a "repulsive pedant," "gross hypocrite," and, perhaps most strange, a "hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, not the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." Federalists retaliated, spreading rumors that Jefferson was a coward who slept with slaves. Jefferson eventually won. (pp. 26-27, "Anything for a Vote," Joseph Cummins)
• 1828: Gen. Andrew Jackson nicknamed his opponent John Quincy Adams "The Pimp." Rumor had it that Adams had forced a young woman into an affair with a Russian Nobleman. Adams' campaign came back swinging, calling Jackson's mother a prostitute, and that his father was half black. Jackson won.
• 1836: Congressman Davy Crockett — yes, king of the wild frontier — accuses presidential candidate Martin Van Buren of being a transvestite who dresses up in women's corsets. (pp. 88-89, "Martin Van Buren," Ted Widmer, Edward L. Widmer) Van Buren won.
• 1876: Rutherford B. Hayes vs. Samuel Tilden: Named the "Dirtiest Presidential Campaign of All Time" by politicalwire.com, Republicans counted Democratic votes as their own in three Southern states. Both parties used violent tactics to induce recently freed slaves to vote for their candidate. Democrats "accused Hayes of shooting his mother and robbing the dead." Republicans claimed Tilden suffered from venereal disease, which caused severe mental disorders. Hayes won.
People who have been intimately involved in the brutal process of American presidential politics argue that negative campaigning is here to stay. Susan Estrich was press secretary to Michael Dukakis during his 1988 campaign. A candidate must be ready to sling mud, she said in an interview with the BBC.
"He who doesn't do it dies, you now have both sides with massive opposition research efforts. And the game today is both sides do it and then like children in the school yard we fight about who started it," she said.
Our friend John McCain spoke out against negative attack campaigning in 2000 in an interview also conducted by the BBC.
According to John McCain, the overall effect for democracy is damaging. He says, "The evidence is ample that negative advertising and negative campaigns depress voter turn-out and ours already is in the views of many, including me, unacceptably low."
Obama has promised to bring us a new Washington, a place where we can show the world the best of America instead of the worst. But in order to get there, Obama and his advisors need to show McCain's tired old attacks for what they are — more of the same.