VOTERS NEED TO VET CANDIDATES!

 Weekly Opinion Editorial

DO THE WORK!

by Steve Fair

     Politics has always included dirty tricks. The presidential campaign of 1828, pitted incumbent John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson, a rematch of the 1824 election. In 1824, because none of the five candidates received a majority of the electoral votes, the election was thrown into the U.S. House of Representatives. Jackson had received more popular and electoral votes than Adams which had resulted in bad blood between the two men. The rematch in ’28 became what is perhaps the dirtiest campaign in American political history. Jackson was accused by Adams of murder, gambling, slave trading and treason. They called him a 'military chieftain,' and said his mother was a prostitute, his father a mulatto man, and his wife a bigamist. After the attack on his dead mother, Andrew’s wife Rachel found Old Hickory in tears pointing to a newspaper article and saying, “Myself I can defend; you I can defend; but now they have assailed even the memory of my mother." But Jackson’s supporters were not innocent. Adams was accused of installing gambling tables in the White House at the public expense, of padding his expense account, and even of pimping women for a Russian monarch.

     According to author Joseph Cummins, politics is not getting dirtier as some claim. In his book, Anything for a Vote, Cummins says, “a rough rule of thumb is that incumbent parties tend to play the most dirty tricks, perhaps because they have the ways and means to do so." Cummins says the dirtiest presidential race was not the Jackson/Adams race, but the Johnson/Goldwater race in 1964. “President Lyndon Johnson, seeking his first elective term after taking over for the assassinated JFK, set out not just to defeat Goldwater, but to destroy him and create a huge mandate for himself.” Cummins says that Johnson had a top-secret after-hours team that planned the dirty tricks. “There were sixteen political operatives, in close contact with the White House, who set out to influence the perception of Goldwater in America’s popular culture.” “They put out a Goldwater joke book entitled You Can Die Laughing.” “ They even created a children’s coloring book, in which your little one could happily color pictures of Goldwater dressed in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan.” So dirty politics is nothing new- it’s been around since the beginning of the Republic. And it happens at all levels of politics- not just at the national level. When campaigning begins to include signs, opponents begin using dirty tricks to keep the other guy’s name out of the public eye.  The recent primary runoff elections in the Sooner state included some ‘dirty’ politics, but the mudslingers didn’t fare well at the polls.  Three observations:

     First, attack politics works.  Political operatives like to say they only work when you are behind, ahead or even- in other words- all the time.  Voters like a good scandal.  They love sensualism. Puffery and hyperbole appeal to our base nature.  Policy is boring, so personality becomes the focus in most races.   Until voters refocus their focus, mailboxes will continue to be filled with attack pieces.

     Second, anonymous attack pieces should be largely ignored.  With the expansion of ‘dark money’ groups, funding can come from anonymous/non disclosed donors.  That namelessness and obscurity shields the money source of the attack, fueling unsubstantiated claims, caricaturing and distorting of policy positions, personal attacks and downright lies. Those pieces of trash should be promptly thrown in the round file.  It does appear voters in the primary runoff were not swayed by the dark money pieces.  If voters continue to ignore them, the money will dry up.

     Third, dirty politics is used to distract.  Campaigns and groups that stoop to slinging mud lack the confidence to run on policy- or they often have something to hide.  When a candidate paints themselves as a committed Christian, but violate fundamental principles in God’s Word, their sanctimonious, hypocritical spirit is exposed.  True believers don’t lie, cheat and steal to win an election. 

     It’s difficult to cut through the rhetoric and self-promotion in politics.  Discerning who is an able, honest, selfless person who wants to serve and not be served requires work.  Do the work!