Mudslinging Quotes

Mudslinging – In politics, anything bad the opponent says about our candidate; in contrast, when our candidate does this, it is called 'making a good point.

New developments in negative advertising like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth allow a campaign to hurl invective while shielding the candidate from any association with such strategies.

I just will not—I refuse—to get into the gutter with that guy.

The Republican I ran against, at the end of the campaign, had decided that I was "a friend of terrorists" and "a friend of pedophiles." That's the kind of crap they came out with. I expect that's the kind of crap they'll come out with again.

I see it all the time in politics. If a candidate gets caught in a lie, he quickly tries to change the subject by throwing more mud at his opponent. The mud keeps flying until some of the slanderous material sticks.

I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.

Despite all the public hand-wringing about negative advertising, political veterans will tell you that it persists because, more often than not, it works. But tearing down the other guy has another attraction: It can be a substitute for building much of a case for what the mudslinger will do once in office.

The problem with smear campaigns is that too often they work

Other Republican candidates may retort to personal attacks and negative ads.

I'm not going to get down in the gutter with DeSantis and Trump - there's enough of that going on.

I don't want to get into political mudslinging.

Friends, I will disown and repudiate any man of my party who attacks with … vile, foul slander and abuse any opponents of another party.

With a click of the 'Post Comment' button, Netizens can quickly bring down the level of dialogue. Bloggers lob zingers, commenters trade barbs, and bullies target kids in the cyber schoolyard. Mudslinging - a time-honored political tradition - thrives on the Web.

Vince McMahon can end up in a federal lawsuit with you where there is mudslinging back and forth that makes the front page of 'The Wall Street Journal,' and if tomorrow he figures out a way where the company can benefit from your involvement, you will be at a negotiating table with him at lunch.

I have become an adjective. There is something called a Rovian-style of campaigning and it's meant as an insult. One columnist said it consists mainly of throwing mud until it sticks. One prominent blogger described the elements of a textbook Rovian race as fear-based, smear-based and anything goes.

Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors.

Many take pleasure in spreading abroad the weakness of an exalted character.

I am contesting elections since 1952, but never did I throw mud.

He who slings mud generally loses ground.

Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men.

Calumny ever pursues the great, even as the winds hurl themselves on high places.

You have got to be careful quoting Ronald Reagan, because when you quote him accurately it is called mudslinging.

I'm concerned about the negative aspect of political campaigning in american nation, which is a new phenomenon. When I ran for president against Gerald Ford and later against Ronald Reagan we never referred to each other except as 'my distinguished opponent'. And had we criticised personally our opponent it would have been political suicide, we would have been castigated and condemned for it.

CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.

Sure those quotations were irrelevant, but we had one objective: to keep him [Sinclair] from becoming Governor. But because he was a good man, we were sorry we had to do it that way.