OPINION:
The uproar over the Dan Sullivan stunt in Alaska is this year’s most famous political dirty trick.
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is conducting civil and criminal investigations that include possible conspiracy to dupe Alaska voters with two Senate candidates who share the same name. One is incumbent Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan, the other Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher who has not been campaigning. However, a federal judge on Sunday dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to delay certification of the Alaska Senate election; the Justice Department has vowed to appeal, and the criminal investigation remains ongoing.
The New York Times, notably not a fan of Republicans in its news coverage or editorials, broke a story that it headlined: “Inside Democrats’ Secret Effort to Stack Alaska’s Ballot.” Operatives aligned with Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate, spent months recruiting candidates to peel votes from Sen. Dan Sullivan, the Republican.
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This is familiar stuff to veteran political observers.
People old enough to remember the Nixon years will recall some of the dirty tricks used by his campaign operatives. Among the more outrageous ones:
• Infiltration of opposing campaigns, illegal wiretapping and bugging of political headquarters, including the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in 1972.
• Creating fake committees, distributing forged letters and false press releases, and planting damaging rumors, such as anonymous letters sent to the Manchester Union-Leader to sink Sen. Edmund Muskie’s 1972 primary run.
• Disrupting campaign schedules, picketing, using fake deliveries and harassing opposing candidates.
• Using federal entities such as the IRS to target political adversaries.
• Efforts led by figures such as Anna Chennault to encourage the South Vietnamese government to stall peace talks in Paris ahead of the 1968 election.
One of my favorite Democratic dirty tricks came from a man named Dick Tuck. In 1962, during Nixon’s run for governor of California, Tuck posed as a train conductor and interrupted the candidate’s whistle-stop speech. That was not all. At the 1972 Republican convention, which nominated Nixon for a second term, Tuck organized a group of pregnant female protesters who wore buttons embossed with the president’s campaign slogan: “Nixon’s The One.”
At least that one made some people laugh. There is little humor with today’s tricksters and campaign ads, which call opponents names worse than those used to describe dictators such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s regime leaders.
In his book “Anything for a Vote,” Joseph Cummins recalls some of the most vicious, outrageous and frequently ridiculous things that were said by and about candidates trying to win the White House. Here are a few:
• 1836: Martin Van Buren prevailed despite Whig candidate William Henry Harrison’s backers hammering the aristocratic Van Buren’s style of refined dress. Congressman Davy Crockett accused Van Buren of secretly wearing women’s clothing: “Van Buren is laced up in corsets, such as a woman in town wear,” read one hit piece.
•1840: With another crack at Van Buren four years later, Pennsylvania Whig Rep. Charles Ogle upped the attack, claiming the president “slept on fine French linens and ate from silver plates with forks of gold.”
• 1856: James Buchanan was afflicted with a congenital palsy that caused his head to tilt slightly to the left. Opponent John Fremont’s supporters spread the mistruth that the tilt was the result of Buchanan once trying to hang himself.
• 1860: Abraham Lincoln was said not to be the easiest on the eyes. Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas’ backers at the Charleston Mercury newspaper even called Abe a “horrid-looking wretch” who was “sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper, and the nightman.”
President Reagan said: “It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”
As King Solomon said: “There is nothing new under the sun.”
• Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (Humanix Books).
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