The 1800 election
October 30th, 2010 at 3:47 pm by David FarrarThis video nicely shows how attack ads are nothing new. They use quotes that Jefferson and Adams used against each other in the 1800 presidential election – they are far far worse than anything said today.
1800 was the first time a sitting President lost an election, and showed how power can be transferred peacefully. It was also the first and only Vice-President to win an election against the President they served with.
Tags: attack ads, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, United States
October 30th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
It was also the first and only Vice-President to win an election against the President they served with.
Mainly due to the stupid provision in the US constitution that the runner up in a Presidential Election got to be vice-president in the theory that he would work with his rival for the good of the country. As if. Imagine. Obama-McCain. Bush-Kerry. Bush-Gore. Clinton-Dole. Clinton-Bush. Bush-Dukakis. Reagan-Mondale. Reagan-Carter. Carter-Ford. Nixon-McGovern. Nixon-Humphries. Johnson-Goldwater. Kennedy-Nixon (!). Eisenhower-Stevenson…
Vote:October 30th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
And people say I’m a dumb brunette, that’s not how to spell President. Should I start to write farah? On no, she’d be more popular than me!
Vote:October 30th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
A good roasting didn’t do anybody any harm.
Vote:October 30th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Tina Palin (4) Says:
October 30th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
“And people say I’m a dumb brunette, that’s not how to spell President.”
Learn something about late 18-century typography and maybe we’ll stop calling you a dumb brunette.
Vote:October 30th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Heh, now that is funny.
Vote:October 30th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
heh, very funny.
The key difference today.. obviously … is mass communication. As far as I know.. John Adams didn’t have a Twitter account – but he may have had a MySpace.
Vote:October 30th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
NX,
If you haven’t seen it and have an email address you don’t mind sharing, I have a doc entitled “If face book existed years ago” I’ll send to you. A bit of a laugh (and vaguely topical – it has Lincoln, not these two.)
Vote:October 31st, 2010 at 12:44 am
Heh, heh, heh.
Thank you TIME magazine Essay Where Have All The Insults Gone? by Roger Rosenblatt, August 1981, quoting a New England journal of 1800.
After reading that I never again took outrage at anything that any American politicians said about eachother.
Vote:October 31st, 2010 at 1:31 am
Hi bhudson. Yeah, sure, that’d be great. Email it to: nx.newzealand@gmail.com
Vote:October 31st, 2010 at 4:08 am
Yes the attacks were stronger, but then again they also had a civil war a few decades later.
Vote:October 31st, 2010 at 9:19 am
And what does this prove? That the US is going backwards: reverting to the barbarism of a former age.
I note, however, that this negative political discourse of 1800 seems largely to have been a matter of name-calling.
Sticks and stones.
Modern negative campaigning is more insidiously nasty, distorting opponent’s words and positions rather than arguing against the real ones. And back in 1800 candidates had rational debates too as well as name-calling. I invite people to read the 1858 Lincoln Douglas debates. You’d never get that kind of considered argument from a modern US politician (though maybe that’s because the media would never bother to report it)..
Vote:October 31st, 2010 at 10:41 am
I don’t think there is much difference between the slandering then than now except the quality of character was much higher then. Listen to the speeches, choice of words.. The big difference is those leaders founded a nation while the present ones are destroying one. Russell, your right about the news media.. because they are owned by the corporations that have large financial interests in government. Back then, that didn’t happen.
Vote:October 31st, 2010 at 12:26 pm
There’s one I’ll have to remember!
Vote:October 31st, 2010 at 1:11 pm
http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/29/sources-for-attack-ads-circa-1
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