Today's Politics, Goodfellas or Bambi?
Seen any good political ads in the last few months? I bet you have.
The billions have been spent, the commercials flooded the airwaves and the debates a now distant past in our minds. At the end of the day America’s president for the next four years is Barack Obama. I’m guessing there are those reading this who just cussed under their breath, and the rest of you let out a celebratory cheer. The range of political opinions is as diverse and as vast as this great nation of ours; and what a beautiful thing that is.
Regardless if your candidate of choice for president won (or really any of the many races that occurred on November 6), at our core we are still proud of this great nation. To this day we continue the grand political experiment that has remained the envy of the world since 1789.
Sure things get harsh, divisive and partisan. There is the intensity, the attacks, the counter-attacks, the discourse (or lack thereof), the vitriol spewed by not only fighting candidates but the cable news talking heads, and lest we forget a presidential town hall debate many thought more closely resembled a battle of gladiators in the Coliseum rather than an exchange between statesmen. I’d guess if you polled the question about this year’s election battles if they were more Goodfellas than Disney’s Bambi, the overwhelming response would be for the gritty, morally compromised former.
But was it really?
When looking into our history there were some downright nasty campaigns that make our most recent contest look like a kids show (and no, I’m not talking about Big Bird). We might think the gloves came off this year, but look into the political fires of our past, and I think most will agree in the “good old days” it was no-holds-barred.
Don’t believe me?
At least this past campaign season a prominent newspaper of our time with a political leaning persuasion didn’t falsely report a candidate had died in an effort to prevent his election. A preposterous notion? It wasn’t for Thomas Jefferson when a Federalist newspaper falsely reported his death.
This isn’t to say Jefferson didn’t give it as good as he got. In 1800, what today would probably be called “a person close to the campaign,” wrote that Jefferson’s political rival John Adams was, “a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensitivity of a woman.” Adams was no slouch with the mud-slinging making references to voters about Jefferson such as, “[a]re you prepared to see your dwellings in flames... female chastity violated... children writhing on the pike?” Ouch. And we think arguments about disclosing tax returns are nasty.
In 1804 politics is all fun and games until someone gets shot and later dies in a pistol duel. Sitting Vice President, Aaron Burr, shot and fatally wounded former Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, all because of long standing and escalating political disagreements. (A quick aside and a matter of personal political curiosity, on the day of the duel Hamilton’s “second” was a lawyer named Judge Nathaniel Pendleton)
Now I know what you are thinking, “Yeah, but that was in the early 1800’s.” Fair enough. A few decades later Andrew Jackson was accused by the John Quincy Adams campaign of murdering defectors in the War of 1812 and having an illegitimate marriage. All’s-fair I suppose since the Jackson campaign response was to accuse Adams of serving as a pimp for a Russian czar.
Everyone likes to remember the high-minded and the unparalleled seven, two and a half hour each, Lincoln-Douglas debates. Sure the political giants of their day Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated over national issues as transformative as the issue of slavery, but that didn’t mean the entire campaign was above-board. Neither campaign was above attacking the other based on purely physical characteristics of the candidates. Douglas was ridiculed for his 5’4” height, and the Lincoln campaign added he was also, “about the same in diameter the other way.” Douglas’ campaign said Lincoln was a, "horrid-looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper and the nightman." Now I’m not really sure what half of that insult means, but it can’t be good.
Jump ahead to the presidential election of 1928 between Herbert Hoover and Al Smith. This campaign got out right nasty focused on Smith’s Catholicism when the Hoover campaign claimed he had commissioned a secret 3,500 mile long tunnel straight to the Vatican. Smith didn’t help his cause much with the endorsement of Babe Ruth, which one would have thought would be a terrific populous boost. However, when Ruth showed up to Smith campaign events in just an undershirt, mug of beer in-hand and would tell those who opposed his views, “the hell with you,” it turned out to not be the best of affiliations. George Clooney, Ruth was not. Could you imagine the dead air silence on the Sunday morning shows of This Week or Meet the Press if the campaign spokesperson simply responded to George Stephanopoulos or David Gregory with a blunt, “well, to hell with you then!”
Fast-forward to 1964 when imagery of a nuclear holocaust was not outside the realm of political acceptability. Texas’ own Lyndon Johnson ran a television ad against Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, who the Johnson campaign labeled a precipitator of nuclear war, depicting a girl counting petals and ended in a nuclear explosion. We all heard a lot about Iran in the third presidential debate, but CNN never ran an ad that called for us to all huddle underneath our desks.
The history of our nation form who we are. We still strive to form our more perfect union.
Sure there are many who condemn the emergence of Super PACs, attack ads, and my personal favorite is when people are confused why politicians never answer the questions they are asked. As former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, once said, “[n]ever answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you.”
But we must take the bad with the good, and we need to all take a moment to realize the good we have is pretty phenomenal. So whether you are rejoicing in celebration or licking your wounds of defeat, take just a moment in your sorrow or elation and let’s all remember where we came from and how far we have come.
In 1789 George Washington was elected our first president. Since then we have had 44 transitions of presidential powers. By comparison to many other parts of the world where political transition is synonymous with bloodshed and violence, our peaceful process based upon the voice of the voters is an enviable system. Pretty astounding what free people can accomplish. And if you are still disappointed, despite my best efforts, as a result of the election, at least take comfort in the idea in four years we get to do it all again.
And isn’t that a beautiful thing?