Copyright 2008, Susan DeLay
Am I the only person in the U.S. who is sick of hearing news about the election? Some candidates have resorted to infomercials to enhance their campaigns, and while I am usually intrigued by 30-minute commercials presented in a news format, I’m changing the channel on electo-mercials. I still don’t know whether the candidates are pro or anti-biotic.
I drove past a home that had peppered their lawn with so many campaign posters that it looked like a graveyard. Interestingly, the homeowners displayed signs for candidates from both parties, so either they can’t make up their minds or family members with opposing views are living under the same roof. Or someone figured no one would notice, so under dark of night, they’re pounding extra posters into the ground while the family sleeps.
Begging for my Vote
What’s the world coming to? I received a TXT message on my phone from a candidate who was begging for my vote. Every evening, my voice mail has messages from various candidates, also begging for my vote. Clearly candidates running for office are exempt from the Do Not Call list.
As annoying (and tiresome) as campaigning becomes, the election process is downright tame compared to what our forebears endured. In some cases, it was so verbally pugilistic, that it’s possible campaigning was a spectator sport.
We’ve been barraged with nice, positive slogans: Country First (McCain), Change We Need (Obama), and the innocuous Nader for President. None of these would influence my vote, but it keeps PR minions employed.
There was a time when candidates focused their energy on personal assaults—in other words, ugly mudslinging. It all started with the third Presidential election when two friends and colleagues, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, went head-to-head for the Presidency in 1800. Adams, the incumbent found himself (for the first time) on opposite side of the fence from his Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson. Let the mudslinging begin.
Talk about Mudslinging
Jefferson hired a hatchet man. (Today they are called campaign managers.) James Callendar, the hatchet man, accused then President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."
Mudslinging is no fun unless it’s reciprocated. So, Adams, who considered himself above hiring someone to do his dirty work, called Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."
With the ball back in his court, Jefferson lashed out at Adams, calling him “a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant.”
Back to Jefferson. He accused Adams of being a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward.
Match point. Jefferson won because his campaign managed to persuade people that Adams wanted to take them into war with France. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true. People believed it and, sadly, people tend to believe bad stuff. This explains why the National Enquirer is still in business. Jefferson became our third President and Callendar did a year behind bars for slander.
Fortunately the candidates understood the power of forgiveness because 12 years later, they renewed their friendship. In an odd twist of solidarity, both passed away on July 4, 1826—50 years to the day after they had signed the Declaration of Independence.
Do Not Call
Elections bring their fair share of heated debates and hotly contested issues, but the 2008 campaign doesn’t seem hateful. And I’ve yet to see the words hermaphrodite or libertine on any posters.
When I get a call from a representative of any candidate for office, I handle my frustration by telling them I haven’t decided whether to cast my ballot for John Quincy Adams or Andrew Jackson. One marketer took an impatient breath and in her most condescending tone, informed me that both of those men are dead.
Well, I was prepared for that. Immediately I gasped, then began to sob, well, not really sob, but fake sob, and ask her how it happened. Was it an accident? Were both of them struck dead for unfair campaign practices? Would the job of President fall to Henry Clay? She hung up. Mission accomplished. Who knows? They might move me to a Do Not Call list of their own free will.
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