Mark Shields Quotes
The problem with smear campaigns is that too often they work
Mark Shields, Political Columnist, PBS News Hour, August 20, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
ignoring them and letting the pressure build, or denying them and taking the hit
Accusing her of being a fellow traveler with Communist sympathies, Nixon called her "the Pink Lady" and said she was "pink right down to her underwear." See {627826} and {619498}. Douglas and her campaign thought the accusations were so absurd that at first they did not even bother to respond. Nixon repeated the them and stayed “on message” and by the time that Douglas, who had opposed communism all her life, was believed to be one or at least a “fellow traveler” by most Californians—and finally she responded with statements like this, but it was way too late to turn public perception around. She awarded Nixon the derogatory nickname “Tricky Dick” which the majority of the public used for him throughout his career--{600036}.
Calumnaire fortiter, et aliquid adhaerebit. See Pierre Beaumarchais for a later version of this political tactic.
35 years later Richard Gephardt used the same phrase to describe Republican tactics.
The Presidential Campaigns of 2008 and 2012 shocked many Americans for the blatant lies that opponents of President Obama wrote and broadcast and then some of the retaliatory lies that Obama defenders responded with. However, this quotation from a 19th century political historian shows us that blatant lying in American politics is not at all new.
Sinclair was running for the governorship of California and initial polls showed that he was way ahead. Major Conservatives from the country over contributed money to defeat him—more money at the time than had ever been raised even for a Presidential campaign. The Conservatives hired the first political consultants who would advise on an American Campaign throughs a corporation they established Campaigns Inc. The consultants began creating posters and pamphlets many of which were total fabrications attacking Sinclair and then went through his novels that he had written and took quotes from character dialogues in his novels including some of the villain characters who said vile things. They attributed all these terrible quotation to Sinclair, put them into printed pamphlets and distributed them all over the state. Sinclair lost making the assumption that few people would believe the lies that were being issued from Campaign Inc. After that race, political consultants began to work in many campaigns, and with that came more negative campaigning, attacks and more falsehood and lies entered the American political scene.
Mark Stephen Shields is an American political columnist and commentator. He has worked in leadership positions for many Democratic candidates' election campaigns.
