This sums it up pretty well for me:
For some of the races I mentioned:
1928: In the South (back when this was the Democratic bedrock), much of the Hoover campaign was conducted by Democratic politicians (including several members of the Senate) running explicitly against Al Smith’s Catholicism. It’s safe to say, so far, that no Democratic Senators from heavily Democratic states have been campaigning against Obama on…I need not say more.
1936: A large amount of the Republican campaign (especially as conducted for the ticket as a whole by the likes of the Chicago Tribune) takes a tone of “Vote Landon, you may never have a second chance”. There is a certain amount of paranoia in elections, as conducted in the 1930s and early 1940s, that involves this sort of paranoia.
1968: I’m not sure how well I can describe what made the Wallace Presidential campaign of 1968 as sleazy as it was, but there has been writing describing it. (If you can find a copy of An American Melodrama, that would be quite helpful.)
And let’s not forget McCain’s connections to Charles Keating and G. Gordon Liddy. It’s not like he doesn’t have some skeletons in his closet himself-and his connections are much closer than Obama’s.
Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers do not have top rated radio shows or best selling books. No one would have heard of them if the right didn’t make an issue out of them.
That is terrible and yet you persist. When Obama went to Chicago Ayers was a highly respected college professor. He wrote and edited books on educational theory and practice. He ran Dalys program to redo the public educational system . He was part of the Woods foundation that worked on poverty issues in Chicago.
If you went there to organize ,he is who you would want to talk to. He was doing good work and was deeply involved in the issues that Obama was dealing with.
You never quit drinking the kool aid.
What, you haven’t read the books already?
I haven’t either, but I do know that if you were a halfway respectable Midwest Protestant in 1928, you were against Smith and for Prohibition for the simple reason that Smith was Catholic and against it, and if you weren’t, you kept your trap shut.
Similarly in 1936, it was supposed to be the “real Americans” for Alf Landon vs. the egghead/urbanite/unionist lefty coalition for FDR. The first important (though wrong) poll was in '36, and predicted Landon. The reason? It used car registrations and phone books. If you had either a car or a phone in 1936–never mind both!–you were likely not for FDR. And he won anyway. That’s how bad things were.
Sort of close? Seriously. No one had ever heard of the man, save people involved in the same religious community.
You assert that Ayers is a major public figure. I disagree. Scintillating. For once, I feel my opinion is comfortable in the majority.
Yawn.
Actually, he was characterized as
As ever, IOKIADDI.
Regards,
Shodan
Truth bores you. Well you are not bored very often then?
Not when reading your posts.
Regards,
Shodan
He was a big figure on the Chicago education scene. Most people had never even heard of that, much less belonged to it. Before this year, I’d never heard of Bill Ayers, but I damn well knew exactly who Gordon Liddy was.
Are you a blond? Do you work on the View?
Who did Gordon Liddy bomb?
Regards,
Shodan
This could be a description of several academics I have worked with over the years. Similar story, different city. They are not major public figures. Perhaps the most prominent public intellectual in my department in grad school was the author of several influential books, was an advisor to presidents, and was the research director of the RNC.
He draws more water than Ayers, and he is not a major public figure.
Get real.
What does that have to do with how well known he is?
Regards,
Captain Carrot
True. One could also counter, “which courtrooms did Bill Ayers discharge firearms in?”
What was Ayres convicted of?
Cheers,
EP
I’m a little late getting ito the party, but just to go back to “Is this the nastiest, meanest Presidential campaign of modern times?” – my answer is “not even close.”
1960 - the Papist John F. Kennedy was going to take orders from the Roman Catholic Church.
1972 - even leaving Watergate out completely, George McGovern was the candidate of “acid, amnesty and abortion” (a slogan hung on him by fellow Democrats.)
1988 - IMHO the Willie Horton ad was sleazier and more race-baiting than anything I’ve seen this year.
1992 - Bill Clinton, adulterer, draft dodger, went to Moscow, wife made shady commodities deals.
2004 - swiftboating
This doesn’t even rank in the top 5 in my own lifetime!
A slogan hung on him by his own running mate, as it turned out. Not that McGovern knew.
I’m pretty sure you’re right, but I couldn’t dig up a quick cite for it.