Campaign Mudslinging Nothing New

The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” examined the claim that Barack Obama spent time at an Indonesian madrassa, and Huckabee’s statements about Mormonism.

Character-based mudslinging has long been a part of American presidential campaigns. Most alive today can remember the accusations of philandering that sank Gary Hart’s 1988 bid for the Democratic Party nomination. Similar claims did not prevent Bill Clinton winning in 1992. The presidential runs of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Grover Cleveland were tainted with scandalous claims in their day. Jefferson and Cleveland both wrestled with accusations that they fathered illegitimate children.

Even before television there was political slander. Campaigns & Elections magazine highlights some of the most venomous election strategies from 1796 to 1884. The 1800 race between incumbent John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was particularly malicious. The magazine notes that “Adams was called everything from a fool to a criminal. Claims were made that he wanted to marry off his son to the daughter of George III, creating an American dynasty under British rule.” In turn, Jefferson was accused “of being a cheat, a fraud, a coward and a robber.”

American Heritage magazine ran a feature in 1994 spotlighting how the press since the colonial era has pandered to political interests. The article says that Thomas Jefferson was “a master manipulator of the press who was not above simply buying a newspaper to ensure good coverage.” A paper controlled by his political adversaries, the Federalists, wrote in an 1802 article, “Should the Infidel Jefferson be elected to the Presidency, the seal of death is that moment set on our holy religion, our churches will be prostrated, and some infamous prostitute, under the title of the Goddess of Reason, will preside in the Sanctuaries now devoted to the Most High.”

The educational Web site EyeWitness to History notes that the 1828 election between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson “was one of the foulest presidential campaigns in American history … Adams' supporters hurled charges of bigamy and adultery against Jackson and his wife Rachael who had been previously married. Jackson’s supporters retaliated with charges of adultery against Adams and his wife … Rachael Jackson recoiled at the allegations. Many thought the slanderous attack hastened her death just before Christmas. Jackson won the election, but his wife’s death threw him into mourning.”

Historian and sociologist James Loewen wrote a book published in 1999 that asserts James Buchanan, America’s 15th president, was the country’s first (and only) gay head of state. Before he was president, he spent many years in Washington living with Alabama Sen. William Rufus King. They were known as “the Siamese twins,” and political adversary Andrew Jackson called King “Miss Fancy.” When the senator was sent to France as a diplomat, in a letter to the future president, he wrote, “I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation.” In an 1884 note addressed to a Mrs. Roosevelt, Buchanan wrote, “I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them.” Buchanan was engaged for a brief period to Philadelphia socialite Ann Caroline Coleman, but she broke off the relationship.

New York’s Museum of the Moving Image has a catalog of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2004. Featured on the site is a 1964 Lyndon Johnson campaign commercial that, according to the museum, “uses a striking combination of images and sounds to imply that if elected, the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, might start nuclear war.”

On Nov. 28, 2007, The Washington Post printed an article titled “Foes Use Obama’s Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors about Him.” The piece was quickly branded as irresponsible for allegedly giving credence to the debunked rumor that Obama is in some way associated with Islam. Written by Perry Bacon Jr., the article begins as follows: “In his speeches and often on the Internet, the part of Sen. Barack Obama’s biography that gets the most attention is not his race but his connections to the Muslim world.”

The Columbia Journalism Review issued a scathing rebuke of Bacon’s article, referring to it as perhaps “the single worst campaign ’08 piece to appear in any American newspaper so far this election cycle.” CJR Writer Paul McLeary writes that for him the worst part is the way Bacon treats the discredited rumor that Obama attended a madrassa in Indonesia: “While Bacon rightly refers the madrassa story a ‘rumor,’ he quotes enough sources to make it sound like maybe it’s more than that, and he never bothers to state unequivocally that it’s been proven false. This habit of reporters—perpetuating untruths by writing stories about the ‘phenomenon’ of those untruths—drives us nuts.”

Bacon’s story even garnered disapproval from within The Washington Post. “Ombudsman” columnist Deborah Howell wrote in a piece titled “Refuting, or Feeding, the Rumor Mill?” that her “problems with the story by National Desk political reporter Perry Bacon Jr. and the headline (‘Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him’) were that Obama's connections to Islam are slender at best; that the rumors were old; and that convincing evidence of their falsity wasn't included in the story.” Howell notes that the article also prompted ire from Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles, who “was ‘so upset’ that he took the unusual step of taking potshots at the story in an editorial page cartoon.”

Post Assistant Managing Editor Bill Hamilton, who edited Bacon’s article, told Politico that “he was ‘a little bit puzzled’ that readers didn’t see that the paper’s intention was to call into question rumors that Obama is secretly a Muslim.” He went on, “I’m sorry it was misunderstood. It obviously makes me think about how I edited it.”