Round The World

New Delhi, 7 October 2016

US Presidential Polls

NASTY, DIRTY BUT NOT NEW

By V S Dharmakumar

The election campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is indeed getting nasty.  Media report slime and sleaze bubbled to the top in the most revolting US presidential election in living memory. However, digging out the minutest details of political opponents’ personal flaws is not a new phenomenon. It has been there from the days of the first contested US presidential election of 1796 -- the only one to elect a President and Vice President from opposing tickets. Most elections were nastier thereafter.  

Donald Trump, who had extra marital relations and multiple marriages, states that Hillary Clinton was married to the single greatest abuser of women in the history of politics. He adds that Hillary was an enabler and defended Bill for his numerous indiscretions that brought shame to the presidency. As far as adultery allegations are concerned, recall even George Washington wasn’t spared -- he was linked to a woman, Mary Gibbons.

It’s worth a good peek at some of the sleazy US presidential elections. In 1800 Federalist John Adams and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson had an acrimonious and partisan campaign. Jefferson was the first in spreading outright lies about his political opponent through hired hatchet men. He got printed a series of vicious leaflets spreading lies about Adams labelling him as a fool, hypocrite, criminal, and a tyrant who had a hermaphroditical character which has neither the force of a man nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.

Adams’ men in return called Jefferson a weakling, atheist, libertine, coward, mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father. One newspaper warned that with Jefferson as President, “murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.”

The Gazette of the US published an article accusing Jefferson of carrying on an affair with “Sally” Hemmings, one of his slaves. Adams too got published scandalous pamphlets alleging Jefferson fathered children with slave Sally. Even Martha Washington submitted to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was “one of the most detestable of mankind.”

The 1828 presidential election was between Democrat Andrew Jackson and incumbent Republican President John Quincy Adams, who was painted as a depraved aristocrat, had procured prostitutes for the czar while serving as US minister to Russia. Adams’ Federalists responded by asking voters: “Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames...female chastity violated... children writhing on the pike?” Jackson defeated Adams. However, Jackson’s wife Rachel’s virtue had then became a subject of political spin.

Charles Hammond, editor of the Cincinnati Gazette wrote asking “Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?” She was called a “dirty black wench”, and said she was prone to “open and notorious lewdness”. The relentless abusive attack on her began to take a toll on her health and condition worsened. Rachel reportedly told a friend: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington.”

Rachel’s illness got aggravated by the personal attacks on her marriage and died on December 22, 1828.  Jackson was devastated. He accused the Adams campaign for causing her death: “I can and do forgive all my enemies. But those vile wretches who have slandered her must look to God for mercy.” On winning the election, he headed for Washington as a widower. 

Abraham Lincoln was attacked slanderously during the 1860 presidential campaign. The Northern Democrats nominee Stephen A. Douglas stated he was a “horrid-looking wretch, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper, the night man, the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.” Stephen Douglas called Lincoln `two-faced’ in a political debate. Lincoln, belittling his own physical appearance, turned to his audience and said: “I leave it to you. If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?” 

The 1884 presidential election was between Democrat Grover Cleveland and Republican James G. Blaine. Cleveland faced the Republican taunts of “Ma! Ma! Where is my Pa”? -- reference to his siring an illegitimate child with Maria Crofts Halpin. He decided to deal with the issue with frankness and admitted he had an “illicit connection” and was paying child support. The taunt didn’t impact his election, he won. The Democrats then finished the refrain with delight: “Gone to the White House! Ha! Ha!”

The Democrats attacked Blaine painting him as politically immoral, a blackmailer who used to obtain favours from railroads. A letter which Blaine wrote was located showing he had sold his influence in Congress to various businesses, which ended with the phrase “Burn this letter.” Democrats’ effective slogans against him were: “Blaine, Blaine, James G Blaine, the continental liar from the State of Maine,” and “Burn, burn, burn this letter!”  

In the 1932 presidential election between incumbent President Herbert Hoover and Democratic candidate Franklin D Roosevelt, the former called Roosevelt a “chameleon in plaid” and the latter responded by calling Hoover a “fat, timid capon.” Near the end of campaign, Hoover ridiculed Roosevelt’s “nonsense ...tirades ... glittering generalizations ... ignorance”.

Then there is the story depicting President Calvin Coolidge as a person who believed that males of species will be more eager to mate with a new female as opposed to one. His belief became known as `Coolidge Effect’. The story: President and Mrs. Grace Coolidge were being separately shown around an experimental chicken farm in Kentucky. On seeing the rooster mounting on the hens, Mrs Coolidge asked the attendant how often that rooster does that act? “Dozens of times” she was told. Then she said: “Please tell that to the President when he passes by here.” When he came along, he was duly informed of the rooster’s performance. He was initially dumbfounded. Then a thought occurred to him and he asked ‘was this with the same hen each time?’ ‘Oh no, Mr President, a different one each time’ was the reply. The President nodded slowly, smiled and said, ‘Please tell that to Mrs Coolidge.’

Then there is the story of Woodrow Wilson having a long relationship with Mary Hulbert Peck, who divorced her husband. Warren Harding, President in the 1920’s, was a compulsive adulterer. For 15 years he had an affair with a friend’s wife, and then, when he took office, he began a relationship with Nan Britton, 30 years his junior. He was reported to be in the habit of making love to her in a White House broom cupboard.

In the 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower, had an illicit love affair with Kay Summersby, his driver during the war. All of their infidelities pale in comparison with those of John F Kennedy, whose affair with Marilyn Monroe evoked no contempt, but admiration. Of course accusations against President Clinton by Paula Jones, Dolly Kyle, Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky are well-known. Clinton has only admitted extramarital relationships with Lewinksy and Gennifer Flowers but denied an affair with Dolly Kyle. With still a few weeks to go for the big day, malicious taunts wouldn’t come as a surprise.---INFA

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