A must read  from this past Sunday’s New york Times is a piece by PAUL VITELLO titled, How to Erase that Smear.  Vitello reminds readers that attack campaigns, enlisted by politicians seeking office, have been around since the days of our founding fathers.  Below I have included excerpts of Vitello’s piece and sprinkled in some of my commentary and analysis.

When Thomas Jefferson found himself accused of planning to burn all Bibles and legalize prostitution if elected president in 1800, he was ready with a counterpunch that might make today’s most vitriolic campaign operatives stop short, if only to gape upon the greatness that once was presidential campaign slander.

Jefferson’s rival, President John Adams, was endowed with a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman”; and if re-elected he would crown himself king; and, by the way, he was “mentally deranged.”

The author of the attacks was not Jefferson himself, of course, but a master poison-pen pamphleteer named James Callender, who, historians have since determined, was bankrolled completely by Jefferson. (For his efforts, Callender spent nine months in prison under the Sedition Act for saying those things about a sitting president; Jefferson pardoned him immediately after defeating Adams and taking office.)

Essentially, negative smear campaigning is as Americana as apple pie and is arguable an older past time than baseball.

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The 1988 Willie Horton “Weekend Passes” ad will forever be remembered for its effectiveness at driving home a negative message against Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. The ad was written by Floyd Brown, then a consultant to the National Security Political Action Committee.

Twenty years later, hard at work in Seattle, Brown is working to produce an Obama version of the Dukakis ad. He was interviewed last week by the Seattle Times. 

“I’m going to go dig up the information that the mainstream media is scared of, the McCain campaign finds difficult to deal with, and may make some people feel uncomfortable,” Brown said.

Brown is releasing an ad on his Web site and YouTube every other week and is spreading his message through mass mailers and phone banks. Galleys of his new book, “Obama Unmasked,” are stacked in the barren office he’s renting through November.

Despite modest funding, mainly from online donors, Brown’s efforts have been singled out by the Obama campaign as a prime example of the dangers the candidate faces from attacks by independent groups. 

While the ‘88 Horton ad cost $100,000, Brown is producing everything today on his laptop. While controversial, here are two of his spots that would have the ability to move poll numbers : (more…)