Throughout the history of American political campaigns, partisans have used a wide variety of methods to criticize their opponents, attacking their positions on issues as well as impugning their personal character. Such accusations have been made verbally by candidates or their surrogates in campaign speeches, they have been whispered by supporters in the form of rumors, they have appeared in print in the form of partisan broadsides and editorials, and they have been broadcast on the airwaves in the form of campaign advertisements.
One time-honored form of negative campaigning has been the use of “dirty tricks,” which includes a number of unsavory election practices such as spreading rumors about one’s opponent; planting hecklers in the crowd during an opponent’s rally; and attempting to suppress, through misinformation or outright intimidation, the voter turnout of groups that are likely to vote for one’s challenger. Dirty tricks have a long history in American politics, perhaps because politicians feel that they are effective in providing candidates the edge that they need to win, or perhaps because they are so rarely prosecuted (because they are difficult to substantiate, by their very nature).
Sometimes, the accusations made against candidates are true, but they are manipulated by a campaign to appear damaging. Florida Democrat Claude Pepper’s 1950 Senate campaign was once the target of such an attack. His opponent, George Smathers, circulated material charging that Pepper was an “extrovert” who practiced “celibacy” before he was married. While at college, Pepper “matriculated.” Moreover, Smathers charged, Pepper’s sister was a “thespian” and his brother was a practicing “homo sapien.” Voters took the bait, and Pepper lost his reelection bid.
In contemporary politics, the politician most known for employing dirty tricks is Richard Nixon, whose campaign tactics, beginning with his first campaign for Congress and continuing through all three campaigns for the presidency, earned him the nickname “Tricky Dick,” although in fairness it must be admitted that his political rival (and erstwhile friend) John F. Kennedy also employed dirty tricks in his various campaigns. That said, few candidates have earned a reputation for dirty tricks matching Mr. Nixon’s. In particular, Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (ironically nicknamed CREEP) engaged in a number of illicit activities during the Campaign of 1972. Individuals associated with CREEP broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in an effort to find information to discredit Ellsberg, who had leaked the Pentagon Paper\s to the New York Times. Nixon campaign workers also forged the “Canuck letter” and the “Muskie sex letter” to discredit Democratic primary challenger Ed Muskie because Nixon preferred to run against another candidate. CREEP also laundered illegal campaign contributions in an attempt to circumvent recently passed campaign finance laws and, most notoriously, broke into and bugged the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, hoping to find information that would help Nixon win the election as well as prevent feared leaks impugning Nixon’s actions with regard to the Vietnam War, including a serious indictment from some quarters claiming that as a candidate in the 1968 campaign, Nixon attempted to illegally interfere with negotiations between belligerents, prolonging the war for his own political advantage. This break-in, and the cover-up that followed, sealed Nixon’s fate. By 1974 Nixon was forced to resign to avoid certain impeachment.
The extent of the Nixon campaign’s efforts to win the election at any cost has long puzzled political scientists; Nixon was far ahead of McGovern in the polls throughout the campaign, was easily outraising McGovern in campaign funds, and did not at any point appear to be in danger of losing the election. In all likelihood Nixon would have easily won reelection even without resorting to dirty tricks. Much of what seems to have motivated President Nixon, in spite of his comfortable position as the heavy favorite for reelection in 1972, was a fear of leaks that would expose potential tampering with the Vietnam War in 1968 and, perhaps more importantly, his obsession with the political power enjoyed by the Kennedy family, particularly with the prospect of Sen. Edward Kennedy entering the presidential race. President Nixon’s complex history with the Kennedys—and his inability to detach his own insecurities from a conflicted mixture of admiration and contempt regarding the Kennedy legacy—explains at least in part much of his willingness to employ the kind of unsavory tactics that have come to characterize, and forever mar, Nixon’s political reputation.
In the 2002 midterm campaign, Republican operative Allen Raymond was famously found to have illegally jammed the phone lines of the Democratic Party in New Hampshire to prevent the party from transporting supporters to the polls. Raymond went on to write a book detailing his exploits and explaining how political parties engage in underhanded ploys to gain political advantage. In every presidential election, citizens in some communities receive official-looking mailers telling them that they will be arrested at the polls if they owe back child support or parking tickets (which is false); and fliers are posted in communities listing improper election days, to fool the unwitting into missing their chance to vote. Political scientists remain uncertain of how many voters fail to cast a ballot each year as a result of dirty tricks.
In addition to dirty tricks, opposition research remains a staple of negative campaigning in American elections. This term refers to the long history of political campaigns seeking to discredit their opponents by digging up unflattering personal information about them, unpopular votes they may have cast, and public (or private) statements they have made that might sound unsavory or otherwise troubling to the public at large. Historically, opposition research has been conducted by low-level political operatives. In more recent years, it has become far more professional.
During the Campaign of 2000, the BBC trailed opposition researchers for the presidential campaign of Republican nominee George W. Bush. The group, headed by then lawyer and former congressional investigator Barbara Comstock, was staffed primarily with lawyers and congressional investigators for the House committee headed by Representative Dan Burton that had investigated President Bill Clinton during the 1990s. Democratic nominee Al Gore’s opposition research team was headed by Chris Lehane, who was responsible for much of the damage control for Bill Clinton during his time in office. “Digging the Dirt” shows how both candidates relied on friendly sources in the news media to disseminate the information they wanted to leak, essentially using the press as a tool to control the narrative of the campaign.
Professional opposition researcher Jason Stanford notes that successful research must be accurate, must strike the right tone, and must address a concern that is viewed by voters as relevant. According to Stanford, rumors of Bill Clinton’s infidelities gained little traction in the Campaign of 1996 or the 1998 midterm elections because voters simply did not care that much about Clinton’s personal life.
The advent of the twenty-four-hour news cycle has made opposition research far more visible in modern presidential campaigns. Opposition researchers have a wide array of news outlets, both traditional and nontraditional, through which to disseminate information. News organizations, Web sites, and political blogs, eager to feed the public’s appetite for new information, have become quicker to embrace the information provided by political campaigns. Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had hired opposition research teams at least a year and a half before the election during the Campaign of 2008. Similarly, most Republican candidates in the Campaign of 2012 (except for Michele Bachmann) hired teams of professional opposition researchers a year before the first primary elections took place.
Opposition research may also be disseminated through the unsavory practice of push polling. A push poll involves the use of a telemarketing firm working on behalf of a presidential campaign but concealing that information in its encounters with the people it is “surveying.” Rather, push pollsters feign an element of objectivity in the guise of conducting an independent public opinion survey. Recognizing that voters are quite familiar with public opinion polls, campaign managers have reasoned that it might be possible to transform an opinion poll into an instrument of political persuasion. Push polls are designed to convince voters that the survey is legitimate, whereupon voters are provided with damaging information about a candidate and asked whether this information might influence their vote choice. Basically, a push poll is simply a negative campaign ad masquerading as a public opinion poll.
In the Campaign of 2000, the Republican primary contest brought considerable media attention to the use of push polls by political campaigns and independent groups. Arizona senator John McCain alleged that the campaign of Texas governor George W. Bush used a push poll to derail the McCain campaign in South Carolina. Specifically, the push poll in question characterized McCain as a cheat and a liar, and it implied that he was the father of an illegitimate African American child, the latter a particularly scurrilous accusation in South Carolina at that time. (The accusation about McCain was not true; the child in question was a Malaysian girl that he and his wife Cindy had adopted; ironically, then South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond actually had fathered an out-of-wedlock African American child, a fact disclosed only after his death.)
Push polls continue to play an important role in both primary and general election campaigns because campaign strategists believe them to be effective in the same way that they believe other negative ads to be effective. The advantage of a push poll is its stealth. Candidates cannot easily determine, much less dispute, the charges being made against them. And because push polls involve telephone conversations, there is little opportunity for the media to broadcast their content, much less analyze the claims being made. Moreover, unlike a negative ad that is broadcast on the airwaves, groups sponsoring push polls are not required to identify themselves to those they call (except in the case of New Hampshire). These factors make it likely that campaigns and other groups will continue to use push polls as a tool to air the most distasteful of accusations about political candidates.
During the 2015/2016 presidential campaign, negative ads again dominated political rhetoric. Main contender Donald Trump relied almost exclusively on negative campaign tactics, particularly targeting Jeb Bush (who he has insulted publicly) and Hillary Clinton (most recently by threatening to remind voters of her husband’s history of infidelity), but also poking jabs and jibes at candidates throughout the field. His public aspersions and taunts and mockery of Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio (who he referred to as “a clown”) have been especially harsh. Many of Mr. Trump’s comments are apparently extemporaneous remarks made during campaign speeches or debate showcases, highlighting Mr. Trump’s habit of sharing his unfiltered thoughts on mic and before a crowd.
Political ads continue to be a vehicle for the promotion of negative claims against a political opponent. However, the rise of the Internet and social media has created numerous other outlets for the dissemination of scurrilous accusations against one’s political enemies. And technology will undoubtedly provide new opportunities for future candidates to devise dirty tricks that produce misgivings about candidates, and that potentially hinder electoral opportunities for voters.
See also Character Issue; Political Ads
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