Wiston Papers

And We Think This is Negative.

“Yes, the campaign is pretty distasteful.  Neither candidate is appealing.”

My American friend who lives in Paris was talking about the French campaign for president.  A particularly ugly contest that pits the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy against his Socialist rival François Hollande.  

These two men  really, really don’t like each other if their rhetoric is any indication--and their supporters haven’t helped matters.  

With adjectives like Fascist, Communist, bat (the flying mamal), Rorrweiler (the non-flying dog), and “half-demented” being tossed like verbal grenades, the run-off election this Sunday can’t come soon enough.  A vote that Mr. Hollande is expected to win because President Sarkozy is so widely despised.

I’m encouraged because I was worried about how nasty our own American presidential campaign might be as we move closer to November.  But the French verbal assaults make the U.S. political exchanges seem like conversation at a church ice cream social.  

To our credit most American candidates generally refrain from casting personal aspersions.  Criticism usually is limited to the opponent’s policies or proposals.  Yes, some of those characterizations can make you wince.  But at least denigrating remarks about the other’s physical appearance, moral lapses or religious beliefs are considered out of bounds.

Despite the belief that U.S. political campaigns have become uglier over the years.  Contemporary exchanges are pretty tame compared with political words and actions of the past.  Two of America’s giant historical political figures, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, had a long relationship that deteriorated over the years along with their words for each other.

Jefferson and his supporters branded Adams as a “hideous hermaphroditical character” as well as a criminal and fool.  Jefferson even was imprisoned briefly for his vitriole; convicted of slander.

Adams and his followers, for their part, claimed that Jefferson was a mixed breed of Indian and African blood.

The notorious election of 1884 was marked by accusations against Democrat Grover Cleveland--a bachelor--had fathered an illegitimate child.  His Republican opponent James Blaine, in turn, was criticized as being a liar and corrupt.

If language wasn’t bad enough, America’s early politicians were not averse to actual physical confrontations. In 1804 Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton shot and killed Vice President Aaron Burr.  And South Carolina Senator Preston Brooks got into a fist fight with Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in 1902. One of several among Congressman of the era.

The current U.S. presidential campaign certainly will heat up in the remaining 188 days, However, exchanges between Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama most likely will be quite tame compared with the Sarkozy-Holland contest in France and our American political antagonists of the past.   For that we can all be grateful.

Steve Coon

May 02, 2012