RE: Truth in Advertising

[Jay Oliver <jaydeeo@aol.com>]

You responded to a previous poster, "If I recall correctly, this type of vicious character-assassinating type of campaign ad originated with George Herbert Walker Bush's 1992 campaign against his opponent, Michael Dukakis . . . "

While I agree with your general sentiments concerning "smear" ads, you certainly don't recall correctly.  

Let me preface the following by noting that I "don't have a dog in this partisan fight," since I'm an independent who finds most Democratic and Republican politicians equally loathsome. 

Concerning sleazy campaigning in general, it's existed in every presidential campaign since George Washington declined to run for a third term.  Indeed, the attacks on, among others, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and others make almost anything in "modern" times pale in comparison.

Concerning the infamous Willie Horton ad , actually it was run by one those mysterious "independent" groups, NOT by the actual Bush, Sr. campaign people.  More interesting still is that basically it was a ripoff copy of an ad run earlier that same year ('88), during the Democratic presidential primary campaign, by one Dukakis's own fellow Democratic contenders, one Senator Albert Gore, Jr., of Tennessee!

P. S.  Gore lost that campaign to Dukakis!