Time For the Fun to Begin

originally published January 9, 2008

With the counting of the votes in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, it’s official: the race for president in 2008 has begun. They’ve been holding these elections for 220 years now, and if there’s one thing you can be sure of, it’s that you will see some dirty tricks and negative campaign tactics being used before the final precincts close on Nov. 4.

One of the most entertaining histories of this dark side of American politics is available in Anything for a Vote by Joseph Cummins, a book published just in time for this year’s election. Cummins’ main point is that presidential campaigns always have been and always will be defined by the dirty tricks played by the candidates and their handlers.

“Much as we bemoan how contentious our elections have become, dirty presidential contests are as American as apple pie and television,” Cummins contends, and really, who could argue with him? His book is a reminder that there is nothing new under the sun - the mud-slinging tactics used by today’s politicians have been in use for a long time.

Here are some of the highlights that Cummins recounts:

In the 1800 race between President John Adams and challenger Thomas Jefferson, a campaign leaflet described Jefferson as “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” The Jefferson campaign also got in its shots, hiring a journalist to accuse Adams of being “a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” Jefferson eventually was the winner of this sleazy election.

When Andrew Jackson took on President John Quincy Adams in 1828, some of the most vicious attacks were leveled not against Jackson but against his wife Rachel, who was called a “whore” and a “dirty black wench” who was guilty of “open and notorious lewdness.” Not surprisingly, Mrs. Jackson died of a heart attack shortly after her husband defeated Adams.

As America celebrated its centennial in 1876, the nation’s voters took part in an election that most likely was stolen by the party of the second-place finisher. Democrat Samuel J. Tilden piled up 250,000 more popular votes than Republican Rutherford Hayes and had a lead of 184 to 165 in the electoral college with four states (controlling 20 electoral votes) yet to report their final results. Republicans tried to grab the electoral votes that were still outstanding and the controversy over the counting of those votes went on for nearly five months. Republican-controlled election boards threw out enough Democratic votes to enable the GOP to win Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. A national election commission was appointed to try to sort out the mess. The commission finally voted eight to seven, with the deciding vote cast by a Republican Supreme Court justice, to award the electoral votes to Hayes, giving him the victory over Tilden by the margin of one electoral vote.

Another parallel to modern elections can be found in the struggle for the presidency waged by Democrat Grover Cleveland and Republican James G. Blaine in 1884. A Buffalo, NY newspaper published a sensational article midway through the campaign recounting how Cleveland, a bachelor, had been involved in an intimate relationship 10 years earlier with a widow named Maria Halpin. The widow Halpin subsequently gave birth to a boy, with Cleveland paying financial support for the child. Republicans made much of the sensational disclosure and continually chanted “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa?” at campaign events. Unlike Bill Clinton, Cleveland did not try to claim that he “never had sex with that woman.” Instead, he confirmed that he was supporting the child, and the truthful approach turned out to be the best strategy as Cleveland defeated Blaine. Cleveland’s supporters then had their own chant: “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa? Gone to the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

We will undoubtedly see some of these same tricks and stratagems this year - possibly in the Georgia primary on Feb. 5, when our state’s voters express their preference for a presidential nominee. We’ve already seen Republican operatives make veiled digs at Mitt Romney over Romney’s Mormon faith. If Barack Obama should become the Democratic nominee, we could see some racially inspired attacks on the first African American to have a serious chance to win the presidency.

None of this will be new - as Cummins’ book reminds us, we’ve seen it all before.

Tom Crawford

Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, an Internet news site at www.gareport.com that covers government and politics in Georgia.