Were Nixon's campaigns ever as vile as McSame's ?

[steve2470]

I'm too young to remember.

[Historic NY]

1. He had CREEP and the Dirty Tricks...mostly juvenile compared to today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_tricks

[grantcart]

2. Much worse - they broke into psychiatric offices to read files

they wiretapped DNC offices

lots of harrassing stuff like false letters on Democrat letter head

[steve2470]

3. I totally forgot about Watergate, yes, brain fart nt

[KharmaTrain]

4. The Ultimate October Surprise 1972 = Peace Is At Hand

In '68, Nixon had a "secret plan" to end the war (just like Gramps has of finding bin Laden)...all we had to do was elect him. Then in '72...about this time before the election, after years of arguing over the size of the table, there was finally a breakthrough in the Paris Peace Talks...Kissinger comes out and declares "Peace Is At Hand"...that took care of whatever momentum was left in the McGovern campaign and the rout was on.

[rwenos]

6. And Then In December 1972 . . .

Nixon ordered $8 billion worth of bombing of Cambodian NVA enclaves.

Kissinger should have been prosecuted for perjury.

"Hey, Hey, Henry K. How many kids did you kill today?"

[KharmaTrain]

10. Don't Forget The Mining Of Haiphong Harbor

Many needless lives were wasted in those last raids that did little to end the war and just prolonged the agony another several months.

Cheers...

[Joe Bacon]

5. I remember how Nixon used Claire Chennault to torpedo peace talks!

Nixon had his stooge Claire Chennault torpedo the Paris Peace Talks in 1968. I also remember reading Harrold WIlson's autobiography and was amazed at how Wilson stuck his neck out for LBJ to negotiate with the Soviets over Vietnam, only to see Claire Chennault torpedo that too!

Thanks to Tricky DIck, another 30,000 names got put on the wall that wouldn't have been there without his interference!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Nixon was sneakier. The dirty stuff he did was behind the scenes.

But I don't remember any advertising that was nearly as nasty and vile as the shit McCain is throwing around.

[Drunken Irishman]

8. Yes. Remember his ad essentially saying McGovern was nuts?

It was very low taste. Really low taste.

[regnaD kciN]

9. Are you kidding?

Nixon was the originator of the "if you're not with me, you're a traitor who must be destroyed by any means necessary" politics. The fact that his successors have further built upon the foundation he created doesn't make him any less culpable.

[book_worm]

11. Yes, 1950 labeling Helen Gahagan Douglas "the pink lady--right down to her underwear"

1968: LBJ negotiated October surprise with N. Vietnam for a bombing halt, Nixon secretly intervened and said the North would get a better deal with him.

1972: Creep (Committee to relect the president) and the whole Watergate affair.

1952: as candidate for VP referred to Truman, Stevenson and Acheson as "traitors"

[charlyvi]

12. Oh Yeah.....much worse.....poor Edmund Muskie

I remember the Edmund Muskie thing in particular. I really liked him.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/101072-1.htm


Intelligence work" is normal during a campaign and is said to be carried out by both political parties. But federal investigators said what they uncovered being done by the Nixon forces is unprecedented in scope and intensity.

They said it included:

Following members of Democratic candidates' families and assembling dossiers on their personal lives; forging letters and distributing them under the candidates' letterheads; leaking false and manufactured items to the press; throwing campaign schedules into disarray; seizing confidential campaign files; and investigating the lives of dozens of Democratic campaign workers.



In addition, investigators said the activities included planting provocateurs in the ranks of organizations expected to demonstrate at the Republican and Democratic conventions; and investigating potential donors to the Nixon campaign before their contributions were solicited.

Informed of the general contents of this article, The White House referred all comment to The Committee for the Re-election of the President. A spokesman there said, "The Post story is not only fiction but a collection of absurdities." Asked to discuss the specific points raised in the story, the spokesman, DeVan L. Shumway, refused on grounds that "the entire matter is in the hands of the authorities."

Law enforcement sources said that probably the best example of the sabotage was the fabrication by a White House aide -- of a celebrated letter to the editor alleging that Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine) condoned a racial slur on Americans of French-Canadian descent as "Canucks."

The letter was published in the Manchester Union Leader Feb 24, less than two weeks before the New Hampshire primary. It in part triggered Muskie's politically damaging "crying speech" in front of the newspaper's office.

Washington Post staff writer Marilyn Berger reported that Ken W. Clawson, deputy director of White House communications, told her in a conversation on September 25th that, "I wrote the letter."

[charlyvi]

13. Hunter S. Thompson's obituary for Nixon explains it all....

Spot on. Here are a few paragraphs:


HE WAS A CROOK
by Hunter S. Thompson


MEMO FROM THE NATIONAL AFFAIRS DESK DATE: MAY 1, 1994 FROM: DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON SUBJECT: THE DEATH OF RICHARD NIXON: NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MONSTER.... HE WAS A LIAR AND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT SEA.... BUT HE WAS, AFTER ALL, THE PRESIDENT.

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird."

---Revelation 18:2

Richard Nixon is gone now, and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing -- a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that "I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."

I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.

Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he said, "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you."

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm

[VolcanoJen]

14. I wasn't around then either, but...

... may I recommend the excellent book "Nixonland: The Rise Of A President and The Fracturing of America"? It's amazing, illuminating, and it explains absolutely everything that was f'd up about Nixon, and our political discourse since his reign.

In fact, read it after the election... and rejoice. Because the Nixon Era is finally ending. And yes, it really did take until 2008 to kill it off and deliver its last deserving blow.

[regnaD kciN]

15. The thing about Nixon...

...was that it simply wasn't his campaigns (what went on between the New Hampshire Primary and the November General Election) that were dirty, it was that he ran his entire administration, day in and day out, in dirty campaign mode, always looking to polarize the country and cast those who disagreed with him as "anti-American."

Most of the crap he pulled off, from illegal break-ins to press intimidation to personal destruction of opponents, took place between elections. It was a 24/7/365 business for Nixon and his henchmen.

[Iterate]

16. Crude at times, but much worse

He formulated much of the modern dirty campaign, so he wasn't as refined or artful.

He gained his Senate seat in what is generally considered to be one of the dirtiest campaigns of all time. A master of underhanded smear tactics and McCarthy-like attacks. Inciting construction workers to beat up anti-war protesters was nothing out of the ordinary for him.

Don't forget that he was somewhere on the ticket for five presidential campaigns. After his loss against Kennedy he took notice of Reagan's win for CA governor in 1966. Reagan had invited racists into the party by running against a CA fair housing law, and Nixon took that a step further by running a "Law and Order", "silent Majority" theme that everyone knew really meant anti-black, anti-protester and white. Once the racists got into the party, they brought their religion with them. Reagan called it "Moral Majority" = "White Christian". Rove merely added polling data.

Young Cheney and Rumsfeld were his assistants. Pat Buchanan was a speech writer. G. Gordon Liddy was a chief operative. How vile can you get?

[jaysunb]

17. Research the, "southern strategy.'

you'll be able to decide....

[machI]

18. Nixon was a true professional, McCain is a rank amateur

It is all relative as to vile. Our standards are much lower after 40 years, and so are the Republicans.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

19. I don't think so. Lee Atwater was the devil, but I think McShame has out-eviled the devil!

[H2O Man]

20. Yes.

Nixon was a heck of a lot smarter than McCain, and the people around him were, too. The only current politician who really compares with Nixon would be Cheney, who by no coincidence was a student of Nixon's politics.

[jefferson_dem]

21. 1968 was one of the nastiest campaigns ever.

FauxNews President Roger Ailes, as Nixon's media consultant, effectively kicked off the modern era of smear ads. He's a vile slimeball...but this is some high-quality video production http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1968/convention

[BumRushDaShow]

22. Lee Atwater, the mentor of Rove.

Of course Steve Schmidt became Rove's flunky. :rofl:

[H2O Man]

23. Rove

is found on page 256 of the Senate Watergate Report. He was mentioned for his role as president-elect of the College Republicans. Small world, considering recent events.