Dirty tricks have always played a part in American politics. They can be very mean yet effective and humorous. Dick Tuck was a long-time political consultant for Democrats. He has worked on the campaigns of Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and others. In 1950, Richard Nixon was running for the Senate in California. Tuck, who was employed by Nixon's opponent, Helen Douglas, managed to get himself hired as a campaign worker for Nixon. Put in charge of organizing campaign rallies, he booked a very large auditorium at UC Santa Barbara, one that had a capacity of four thousand, then did nothing to promote the event. Fewer than fifty people attended, most of them from the press, and Nixon was humiliated. On his own part, Nixon circulated a flyer that became known as a "pink sheet," that compared Douglas' voting record with that of a New York congressman who was believed to be a communist, and suggested that her political views must be identical. Nixon won by almost twenty percentage points, and that was the campaign in which he first began to be called Tricky Dick. In 1956, when Nixon was running for reelection as Eisenhower's Vice President, Dick Tuck hired garbage trucks to drive by the convention center with signs that read, "Dump Nixon." After the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, Tuck hired an elderly woman to wear a large Nixon button, then approach Nixon as he left the debate stand. Assuming she was a supporter, Nixon went up to her. While the television cameras were rolling, she said, "Don't worry, son. He beat you this time, but you'll get him next time." In 1960, Nixon was doing a whistle stop tour of California. While giving a speech from the caboose, Tuck disguised himself as a railroad employee and waved the train off while Nixon was still speaking. In 1968, Tuck hired several pregnant African-American women to wear Nixon tee-shirts and circulate through the Nixon rally. The slogan on the tee-shirts read, "Nixon's the One!"
I do not remember what I was doing on Sept. 13, 2017 but I’m glad you fished the thread back up. Let’s see, how about Jimmy Carter versus Ronald Reagan. From my understanding, it was hard for the Reagan team to get Carter into a debate but at some point the Carter team thought it would be a good idea. The date and time was set, the media was ready to go and so would have Carter except someone swiped JC’’s notes out of the White House. All the questions Carter was supposed to ask as well as the answers to potential questions were gone leaving Jimmy totally in the dark during the debate and Reagan looking far more informed and presidential to the public.
JFK is a reminder that the movie Distinguished Gentleman starring Eddie Murphy can actually happen. I believe it was JFK’s first run for the senate when his dad hired someone with the same initials as the candidate running against his son. The hirelings job was of course to run also which resulted in a split ticket and JFK won.
I think we're living in an era of extreme dirty tricks coupled with an era of extreme electorate laziness and ignorance.
I agree. I've mentioned before the example of that young woman asking candidate Bill Clinton "Boxers or briefs?" and instead of there being a national outcry over the inappropriateness, it worked in his favor. Virginia has a sitting Lt. Governor who has been accused of rape, and has stated that he may run for higher office because of all the notoriety the rape charges have provided. So not only will those charges absolutely benefit him, he does not even get called out for saying such an outlandish thing. What the heck has happened to us?
I guess we could all go down the rabbit trail to find out what series of events led up to the permissiveness that the American public has for our elected officials and why only certain ones are allowed that pleasure. Along the same vein, one particular dirty trick was when Trump’s lawyer pulled out the private tape of the statement Donald made regarding a certain female’s anatomy. Had it not been for the fact that Bill Clinton, the darling of the Democrats, didn’t just talk about it but actually did it and in the White House to boot, there might have been greater repercussions for the Trump campaign. Note: i’m assuming that we all know what I’m writing about without going into too much detail.
Be interesting to see the out come of the Trump dossier. Think this Ossie says it well. Russian collusion theory now seems to be ‘the hoax of the century’ - YouTube
When someone says "Did you hear...?!?!?" or "Did you see...?!?!?" we can generally assume they are referring to what a talking head/heads said (perhaps over and over and over) on their telly. The media owns the drum. They decide when to beat it, how long to beat it, and who it gets beat again. The rest of us dance on command. It's not permissiveness, any more than we likely applied standards in the past. We're just doing as we're told...like always.
@Ken Anderson - I do not know enough about politics and to make much comment. I hate politics, it tastes a lot like burnt liver .
Dunno. The media is certainly guilty of extreme bias and in some ways do form other avenues of thinking but all in all I blame the public for getting on the train with them. Everything is seemingly done for us and in general, the American public has gotten lazy and moreover, totally jaded. No one is being force fed but instead of finding better places to eat, the public lines up at the trough and eats whatever is served and some get so used to it that not only permit it but they enjoy it and look forward for more. In essence, it’s the dirtiest trick that can be played on the whole of the public but we do have some control. Instead of watching and listening to media news porn and allowing ourselves to fall into that trap we can turn it off and do some thinking on our own.
And it smells like dog poo in a puddle of buzzard puke. I liked Trump because he was trying to clean up all the vomit and poo that plagues the USA. He didn't resort to dirty tricks or backstabbing politics.
When it comes to replies and being ignored sometimes I feel like a motherless child too . Must have been something I said,huh?Or didn't say.
Also most people don't realize how fast we can lose a nation because the only history they were ever taught was how bad the European's are who created this nation and how to hate their own guts if they are white. I don't think any race is superior to any other but I do think some cultures are. Since we started off wrong as a nation who used slaves then called ourselves freedom loving we actually started off divided states of America instead of united states of America. But I don't see how revenge is going to help either of us.UnAmerican leaders are replacing both black and white Americans while we fight each other they are replacing us both and taking over the nation we built and many died for..