Down and dirty (and dirtier) campaign

by David Grand
April 23, 2008

That title alone might cause you to skip reading the column. And I can't say I blame you. For like me, you've probably growing so tired of the endless debates between Obama and Clinton and with their every word and gesture being analyzed to death in the media, that you feel like screaming out loud: enough already!

But alas, their fighting like kids in a sandbox will likely drag on until the convention. If for no other reason, than that the Clinton's would rather forsake their birthrights than accept defeat, in what they view as their entitlement for the office.

However, the reality is that presidential campaigns are a rough-and-tumble game and has been throughout our recent and past history. And among the nastiest, dirtiest of all time—that make the 2004 Swift Boat charges against Kerry look like child's play—were:

• The Bush vs. Dukakis 1988 election race, where Dukakis was hammered in the ground by the infamous "Willie Horton" ad and in one showing him riding in a tank wearing a helmet, that his advisors hoped would convey a pro-military image. But it backfired like a diesel truck, when Republicans appropriated the footage for their spot, superimposing a list of all the defense programs he had opposed.
• The 1884 race, where Democrats alleged Grover Cleveland had seduced a widow, fathered her child, refused to marry her and paid her off. Truth is, he had dutifully watched over the child and had always acted in his best interest.
• The 1860 race, in which critics called Abraham Lincoln "stupid' and depicted him as an ape in an ad.
• The 1828 race (probably the slimiest of all), with the opposition claiming Jackson was a murderer, and a cannibal and that his wife was a prostitute.

As John Fund said in a February 16, 2006 New York Times article, "Americans have a love-hate relationship with negative campaigning, claiming to despise it and ranting about how it turns off the electorate, while at the same time paying an increasing amount of attention to negative ads and tactics during ever--lengthening campaign seasons." And adding, "that although our negative campaigns aren't pretty, and not always edifying, many democracies around the world  would take a little of our vitriol for an end to the thievery and bribery that ruin their elections."

Now, before I retreat to my cave until the Democrats choose a standard bearer for the general election, I feel compelled to comment on Clinton presenting herself as a working class populist, the politician in touch with small town sentiments, compared to the elitism of Obama.

That claim has about as much merit as a fox claiming chickens are its best friends. And according to Huffington Post's political reporter Sam Stein, "a telling anecdote from her husband's administration shows her attitudes about the "lunch-bucket" Democrats are not exactly pristine."

For in January 1995, as the Clintons were nursing their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at Camp David, as to whether he should make overtures to working class white southerners who had forsaken the Democratic Party.

"Screw 'em," Hillary told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill; for they're doing nothing for you, and you don't have to do anything for them." (That statement which author Benjamin Barber witnessed (along with others) and wrote about in his book, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House.)

Oh well, that was 13 years ago and she's come along way since then, even downing a shot of whiskey and a beer chaser in a Pennsylvania bar to identify with the common folks. Hate to rain on her parade, but the average Joe  Blow would never order a shot of Crown Royal, with or without his beer. Wonder if she was a little tipsy afterwards.