A Good Callender Campaign

One of the oldest cliches in politics is that whatever election it is, it is now the dirtiest election ever. This is complete hogwash. Every election is dirty and it always has been. In fact up until this year, modern campaigns have been rather mundane affairs.

Real dirty campaigns are like those organized by James Callender. Callender was an independent publisher who attacked the Hamiltonian Federalists during the period of the Adam's presidency. He was hired by Thomas Jefferson during the campaign of 1800 and attacked Adams on monarchial grounds. After Jefferson won, Callender turned on him when he was not granted special favors for his services. It was Callender who published the details of the affair between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Callender would later go on to accuse Jefferson of attempting to seduce married women and suppress pro-Federalist newspapers (how's that for a First Amendment violation?).

Fast forward to this year. Neither campaign has accused the other of fathering children with a mistress yet, but we have had some saucy accusations so far:

- Republicans openly mock Mr. Obama of eating dog while living in Indonesia.
- Mr. Biden has rhetorically accused Mr. Romney of wanting to re-enslave African-Americans.
- Mr. Obama has been accused of wanting to destroy all free enterprise.
- A PAC ad has suggested that Mr. Romney is liable in the death of a man's wife.
- It has been suggested that Mr. Biden is mentally incompetent.
- Mr. Reid has accused Mr. Romney of tax evasion.
- Mr. Obama has been accused of supporting the takeover/destruction of the US by Muslim extremists.
- Mr. Ryan has been accused of wanting to ensure that older people starve to death or die due to lack of medical care.

There are others, but this gives a flavor of what we are getting into. I don't think it has risen to the level of some of the older campaigns (yet), but we still have a good two and a half months to go. We'll see how long it takes for the modern Ms. Hemings to make an appearance.