The dirtiest campaign ever?

By Weekly Archive On Apr 30, 2008

After
Hillary Clinton’s surprisingly comfortable win in Pennsylvania, the
Democratic primary moves on to North Carolina and Indiana. And so
continues the dirtiest and most vitriolic political campaign in
history — or so the mainstream media would have you believe.

The
night of the Pennsylvania primary, ABC’s Charlie Gibson lamented that
the campaign had become "so nasty and negative and dirty."
The next day, The New York Times bemoaned a primary contest that was
"even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with
pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pandering contests that
preceded it." And David Broder of The Washington Post lamented a
campaign that has become "markedly more negative." Same
with the rest of the media. When they’re not complaining about how
long the primary’s lasting, they’re carping about how nasty it is.

What
I want to know is: What rock have they been living under? Have they
ever covered a political campaign before? By any standard, the
contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been one of the
most civilized in our lifetime.

Of
course, both candidates have emphasized differences between them.
That’s what campaigns are all about. Obama says Clinton’s vote
authorizing the use of force in Iraq means she can’t be trusted to
make other foreign policy decisions. Clinton says Obama doesn’t have
enough experience to govern from day one, especially when the phone
rings at 3 a.m. Tough? Maybe. But nasty? No way. Those are legitimate
issues.

Clinton
tells superdelegates that Obama’s such a weak candidate he can’t beat
John McCain. Obama counters that Clinton has so much baggage, she
can’t beat John McCain — and, besides, she’s too beholden to
insurance, pharmaceutical and oil company lobbyists. Tough? Sure. But
dirty? Absolutely not. Those, too, are legitimate issues.

Seriously,
if you can’t challenge the credentials of your opponent, or his or
her ability to win and govern, you might as well not even have a
campaign. Flip a coin or draw names out of a hat instead.

Of
course, as they say, "politics ain’t beanbag." And we
learned that from the very beginning. In the 1800 presidential
campaign, as David McCullough recounts in his masterful biography of
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson paid James Callender to vilify his
opponent. In a campaign booklet, Callender called Adams a "repulsive
pedant," a "gross hypocrite," and "in his private
life, one of the most egregious fools upon the continent." Not
only that, Callender portrayed Adams as a "hideous
hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness
of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Shown
proofs of the campaign pamphlet, Jefferson assured Callender: "Such
papers cannot fail to produce the best effects." But Adams gave
as well as he took, allowing Yale president Rev. Timothy Wright to
warn what would happen were "atheist" Thomas Jefferson
elected president: "The Bible will be burned, the French
‘Marseillaise’ will be sung in Christian churches and we may see our
wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution; soberly
dishonored; speciously polluted."

And
these were our Founding Fathers!

Politics
weren’t much gentler in President Lincoln’s day. In her excellent
book, "Dirty Politics," Kathleen Hall Jamieson recounts the
terms used to describe candidate Abe Lincoln: "filthy story
teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster,
Ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, robber, swindler, tyrant,
fiend, butcher, and land-pirate." Notice that "Honest Abe"
wasn’t on the list.

Of
course, you don’t have to go that far back to wallow in dirty
campaigns. Think 1988 and Lee Atwater’s promising to make Willie
Horton "a household name." Think South Carolina 2000, when
George W. Bush’s henchmen accused John McCain of fathering an
illegitimate black child (actually, his adopted daughter from
Bangladesh). Think Georgia 2002 and ads equating Max Cleland with
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Think 2004 and the "Swift
Boat" smears against John Kerry.

The
truth is, we’ve seen a lot of dirty campaigns, but this isn’t one of
them. You can call the 2008 Democratic primary many things. Call it
historic. Call it hard-fought. Call it colorful, lively, and long.
Just don’t call it dirty.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "Trainwreck:
The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too Soon)."
You can hear "The Bill Press Show" at his Web site:
billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.