Throughout electoral history, alleged acts of personal impropriety have plagued presidential campaigns. During the Campaign of 1800, political opponents attacked Thomas Jefferson with accusations of atheism, and they circulated rumors that he shared intimacies with one of his female slaves (a rumor only recently determined to be likely true). Despite the rumor, Jefferson went on to defeat President John Adams for the presidency. During the Campaign of 1828, supporters of incumbent president John Quincy Adams spread vicious rumors about Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Jackson. One such widely circulated rumor alleged that Jackson’s wife, Rachel, had married him before she had obtained a legal divorce from her first husband. Jackson’s opponents also published the so-called coffin handbill, which alleged that Jackson had ordered the execution of a number of his soldiers without just cause.
Similarly, supporters of Andrew Jackson circulated their own rumors about John Quincy Adams. One rumor alleged that Adams had procured the sexual services of an American girl on behalf of the Russian czar while serving as ambassador to Russia. Jackson’s supporters also attacked Adams for having a billiard table in the White House, claiming that it was purchased with public funds. (Adams did have a billiard table, but he paid for it with personal funds.) Of greater importance to the ultimate outcome of the election, supporters of Jackson accused Adams of a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay that permitted Adams to win the presidency in 1824, when neither Jackson nor Adams had won enough electoral votes to win the election outright. By throwing his support to Adams, Clay guaranteed Adams victory when the House of Representatives made the final determination of the election outcome. After his election, Adams then appointed Clay as secretary of state in what Jackson supporters characterized as a quid pro quo, implying that Adams had bribed Clay.
During the Campaign of 1844, supporters of Democratic presidential candidate James K. Polk spread rumors that Whig Party candidate Henry Clay frequented brothels in Washington, DC, and engaged in heavy gambling and blasphemy. Supporters of Clay retaliated, alleging that Polk had sold many of his slaves to slave traders. In later elections, attacks focused more on personality than on misdeeds. During the Campaign of 1860, Northern Democratic candidate Stephen Douglas criticized Lincoln as a “horrid-looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper and the nightman.” Supporters of Lincoln frequently referred to Stephen Douglas as the “Little Giant” in an effort to point out that Douglas was a diminutive five foot four, implying that as a short individual, Douglas could not command respect. In the Campaign of 1872, Liberal Republicans attempted to weaken support for President Ulysses S. Grant by depicting Grant as a drunkard who was unaware of the massive corruption within his own administration.
Presidential campaign historians regard the Campaign of 1884 as one of the nastiest in American history. New York governor Grover Cleveland received the nomination of the Democratic Party, and long-time Republican leader James G. Blaine received the Republican presidential nomination. With few major issues dividing the Democratic and Republican parties, both sides looked for other ways to discredit the other’s nominee. Cleveland supporters pounded Blaine for a 1870s influence-peddling scandal in which Blaine took payments from a railroad in exchange for helping it win federal land grants. The so-called Mulligan Letters scandal had already cost Blaine the 1876 Republican presidential nomination, and critics believed that reviving it would have a similar negative outcome in 1884. To counter these attacks, Blaine’s Republican supporters made the most of a July 1884 story in the Buffalo Evening Telegraph alleging that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child. Instead of denying the allegation, Cleveland admitted to having an affair with the woman in 1874, and he explained that he had taken financial responsibility for the child. By getting out in front of the issue, Cleveland successfully defused the controversy. The race between Blaine and Cleveland remained close until the final weeks of the campaign. In the end, Cleveland pulled out a narrow election victory, largely due to the fact that New York State’s powerful Irish Catholic vote perceived Blaine to be anti-Catholic.
Throughout much of the twentieth century, major print and broadcast media outlets abided by an unwritten rule that the private lives of presidential candidates were generally off limits. Warren Harding was elected to the presidency in 1920, but his marital infidelity did not become known until after his untimely death in 1923. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s long-term affair with Lucy Mercer, and his death while on vacation with her in Warm Springs, went unmentioned in the press. Similarly, no mention was made during the Campaign of 1952 of rumors of General Dwight Eisenhower’s close personal relationship with his driver, Army captain Kay Summersby, while serving together during World War II. While the press corps was aware of rumors of John F. Kennedy’s womanizing well before he ran for president in the Campaign of 1960, no mention was made of them until after his death.
During the 1970s, however, media coverage of the private and public lives of political candidates began to change. During the Campaign of 1972, Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern made the decision to replace his chosen running mate, Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton, after media reports that Eagleton had received electroshock therapy treatments for depression. In the Campaign of 1976, Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter drew sharp criticism for giving an interview to Playboy in which he admitted to having lust in his heart. Many political experts would point to the Playboy controversy as contributing to Carter’s decline in presidential preference polls.
A turning point in media coverage of presidential candidates’ personal lives occurred during the Democratic primary season in the Campaign of 1988. The leading candidate, former Colorado senator Gary Hart, faced rumors of marital infidelity. In an effort to quell these rumors, Hart challenged reporters to “follow him around,” guaranteeing a boring time for all. Soon after, a reporter saw a young woman enter Hart’s Washington, DC, townhouse, fueling suspicion in the press corps that Hart had something to hide. Unbeknownst to him, Hart was being followed, and in early May 1987, the Miami Herald published a story (with photos) about Hart partying with model Donna Rice on a yacht aptly named Monkey Business. The media feeding frenzy that ensued led Hart to drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination. Even though Hart subsequently reentered the contest, he was unable to establish himself as a serious contender for the nomination, and he soon disappeared from the political scene.
During the Democratic primary Campaign of 1992, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton found himself forced to deal with a tabloid story about a long-term affair with Gennifer Flowers. There were also allegations that Clinton used improper influence in seeking a military deferment to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. To the surprise of many political experts, these character issues did not derail Clinton’s campaign. As the Clinton campaign had hoped, voters were more concerned about their economic well-being than about Clinton’s personal life, and Clinton went on to win the election. Despite efforts by Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole to turn the Campaign of 1996 into a referendum on the Whitewater scandal and other Clinton administration ethics controversies, Clinton went on to easily win the reelection in 1996 as well, buoyed by the economic recovery.
In the Campaign of 2000, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush was forced to confront rumors of heavy drinking and drug use during in his youth. Bush reassured voters that these were youthful indiscretions, that his marriage to Laura had transformed him, and that he no longer had any substance abuse problems. Late in the campaign, a Maine Democratic operative contacted several media sources with evidence that Bush had been cited for driving under the influence in 1976 while visiting his parents’ home in Maine, some time after he claimed to have stopped drinking. Bush confirmed the reports, although he maintained that he was currently a sober and responsible family man. These revelations had little effect on Bush’s standing in the polls.
Military service (or the lack thereof) became an issue again in the Campaign of 2004, as Bush sought reelection. His competitor, Democratic nominee John Kerry, had served on a United States Navy swift boat during the Vietnam War, while Bush had served in the Texas National Guard (viewed during that era as a means of avoiding dangerous combat). Democrats alleged that Bush’s father, former president George H. W. Bush, had pulled strings to get his son into the Guard at a time when the waiting list was long and student deferments were no longer available. (Bush’s running mate, Dick Cheney, had received five deferments and never served, declaring, “I had other priorities in the 1960s than military service”). Similar charges had been leveled against Dan Quayle, George H. W. Bush’s vice president, in the Campaign of 1988. In response, Bush’s supporters argued that Kerry’s actions in Vietnam were anything but heroic, suggesting that he endangered the troops under his command and that he was inappropriately awarded a Purple Heart.
In the Campaign of 2008, former POW and Arizona senator John McCain was the Republican nominee, and the Democrats nominated Illinois senator Barack Obama, who was too young to have served in Vietnam. The candidates had other liabilities, however. McCain had been married once before, and Democrats alleged that he began dating his current wife, Cindy, while he was still married to his first wife. McCain’s first wife came to his defense. Obama was criticized for the inflammatory comments made by his long-time minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Republicans also attempted to link Obama to former Weather Underground member and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. The poor state of the economy in 2008, and Obama’s attempts to link McCain’s policies to those of his unpopular predecessor George W. Bush, helped to mitigate the effects of character issues during the campaign.
The Campaign of 2012 contained remarkably few character attacks. GOP voters were already fairly united in their hatred of incumbent president Barack Obama, primarily as a function of his policies and his perceived lack of patriotism (the latter more likely a function of his party, and potentially his ethnicity, than his character). GOP nominee Mitt Romney was subjected to some early attacks by his opponent for his business activities with Bain Capital—in particular, those instances where Bain purchased businesses that eventually laid off American employees. Romney was also accused of concealing taxable earnings in the Cayman Islands as a means of tax evasion.
It is far more likely that character will be an issue in the Campaign of 2016. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has faced scrutiny for her actions as secretary of state during the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in 2012 in which four people, including U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed. GOP critics also suggest that the Clinton Foundation received improper political donations. Clinton has also failed to release most of her e-mail messages from her time as secretary of state, when she used a private e-mail address and server that she retained after leaving office. Most of her GOP opponents face similar scrutiny for their public and private behaviors, ranging from improper business dealings with corrupt individuals (Jeb Bush), to improper political pressure for personal ends (Chris Christie), to improper coordination of fund-raising in previous campaigns (Scott Walker), to being financially supported by an affluent donor in exchange for political favors (Marco Rubio), to failure to support the Civil Rights Act (Rand Paul), for example. Other candidates (e.g., Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina) have engaged in conduct or made remarks that may be offensive to some portion of the electorate and that may be perceived as a character liability by their party leadership. Just recently Mr. Trump signaled his intention to target the campaign of Democratic frontrunner and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by dredging up a past pocked by unseemly marital infidelities committed by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, a personal history that Mr. Trump has curiously deemed an indictment of Secretary Clinton’s own character.
See also Campaign of 1824; Swift Boating
Bailey, Thomas. Presidential Saints and Sinners. New York: Free Press, 1981.
Nicholas, Peter, and Byron Tau. “Emails Show Clinton Was Warned Over Security in Benghazi Ahead of Attack.” Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-benghazi-emails-to-be-released-by-state-department-1432309888. Accessed September 5, 2015.
Roberts, Robert North. Ethics in Government: An Encyclopedia of Investigations, Scandals, Reforms, and Legislation. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.