My CONCLUSIONS about America's 56 campaigns/elections.

After five months of researching America's 56 campaigns/elections I've reached some conclusions - I'll share these with you.

A number of words/phrases are ingrained in my mind in regard to the 56 political campaigns in our nation. Here they are:

POWER - political parties will do just about anything to achieve and maintain power - whether legal, illegal, unethical, or whatever.

MONEY and GREED - these two go hand-in-hand with power. The big banks and the millionaires and billionaires want their pockets to continue to be lined.

LITTLE PEOPLE DON'T COUNT - when it came to the little working guy wanting to unionize and have better working conditions and make more money the big money people could care less - that's why they supported the more conservative candidates for president. This was especially true during the "The Gilded Age." I put this Gilded Age from about 1870 to 1932.

LIES, HALF-TRUTHS, DECEPTION - these have been standard procedure for our campaigns.

NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING WORKS - every campaign has had negative campaigning but the two that come to mind are the campaigns of 1928 (Herbert Hoover versus that Catholic guy named Al Smith) and 1988 (George H.W. Bush versus Michael Dukakis). These two were vicious and full of lies and deception. It made me sick to read about these two.

THERE IS NO SHAME - no matter how negative the campaigns there has been no shame shown by the winners or their campaign managers or workers. The campaign of 1876 was the most shameful election in American history. The election was stolen by the Republicans from the Democrats and a deal was worked out that set back the civil, social, economic, and political rights of African-Americans by 90-100 years.

PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE WHAT THEY WANT YO BELIEVE - regardless of what the truth is - see the election of 1840 as an example.

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS - don't seem to be followed very closely in our campaigns even though every candidate in all 56 campaigns and their campaign managers have all professed to be strong believers in the teachings of Jesus.

THINGS WON'T CHANGE - the only two elections not to be negative were in 1789 and 1820 - George Washington and James Monroe ran unopposed.

DIRTY AND ROTTEN AND NASTY CAMPAIGNS - are as American as apple pie, ice cream, and Chevrolet.

ELECTION #56, 2008. The NASTY-METER is 6.

We all know what happened in the election of 2008. So the only thing I'm going to record is the election results.

The WINNER was BARACK OBAMA and he became the 44th president of the United States.

Obama got 69,456,897 popular and 365 electoral.

McCain got 59,934,814 popular and 173 electoral.

This was truly a historic election - America elected it's first African-American president. I can say with 100% accuracy that all Americans will be able to pick this president out of any line-up of U.S. presidents.

ELECTION #55, 2004. The NASTY-METER hits 9.

QUOTE from George Bush in a 2004 campaign speech: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

The CANDIDATES in 2004.

REPUBLICAN: GEORGE W. BUSH.

Bush ran unoppsed in the 2004 Republican primaries. As progress in the Iraq War headed south, so did the presidency of Bush. His "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" debacle on the air craft carrier didn't do him much good, especially when the casualties kept coming home. And his lies about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq turned out to be just that - they were outright lies. And his claim that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 was another outright lie. And with the economy continuing to slide, it looked like the Bush presidency might be in trouble. Bush kept Dick Cheney as his VP mate.

DEMOCRAT: JOHN KERRY.

Kerry was raised in an upper-middle-class family in Massachusetts, Kerry attended Yale in the 1960s and then volunteered in the navy. He served two tours in Vietnam, where he earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. He was a bit wooden and even seemed at times to be a little detached. He chose John Edwards as his VP mate.

The CAMPAIGN in 2008.

The 2008 campaign was a no-holds,barred affair; yard signs were stolen and destroyed all over the country; the Internet, cable news shows, talk radio, and newspapers were all involved in this sleazy campaign.

The Republicans were quite successful in making Kerry look like a "flip-flopper" when he made the silly statement, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." The "dirty tricks" were very alive and well on the part of the Republicans; they alleged that Kerry had an affair with a young woman (she denied it); a photo on the Internet showed a young John Kerry and actress Jane Fonda speaking together at a Vietnam War-ers rally - the photo was a fake. And then the famous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, composed of some of the men who had served on the rivers of Vietnam with Kerry, announced that Kerry "was lying about his military record" and that he was "no war hero." Actually one of the main Swift Veterans accusers supported Kerry's account of his wartime service and Kerry was able to turn back the attacks with some force.

For their part, the Democrats sent out scare emails claiming that Bush would institute a military draft if reelected. Kerry was able to best Bush in two different debates even when Bush may have had a receiver attached to his back in order to have answers given to him by his aides when being asked a question. He denied it, of course. But a NASA scientist expressed the opinion that what the president was wearing was indeed a receiver.

The WINNER was GEORGE W. BUSH and he continued as the 43rd president of the United States.

Bush got 60,693,281 popular and 286 electoral.

Kerry got 57,355,978 popular and 251 electoral.

Bush won Ohio by 118,601 votes. But there is no doubt that big time hanky-panky took place in Ohio. Congressman John Conyers did an investigation in 2005 into the Ohio voting irregularities. His conclusion: "There were numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters." An example was some voters were forced to wait in line for more than twelve hours. Yet there were no long lines in Republican areas. In one county alone, the misallocation of machines reduced the number of voters by an estimated 15,000. Statewide, according to Conyers, African-Americans waited an average of 52 minutes to vote, compared to 18 minutes for white Americans.

What we're seeing in 2012 is in Republican controlled states they are requiring all voters to have a photo ID. It will affect the poor people and African-Americans the most - people who usually vote more Democratic than Republican. (An idiot can figure out that these Republican governors and Republican state legislators are trying to do.)

ELECTION #54, 2000. The NASTY METER is 10 again.

QUOTE from Green Pary candidate Ralph Nader: "Only Al Gore can beat Al Gore. And he's doing a pretty good job of that."

I could write a book about this 2000 campaign/election but will make it short as we all know what happened.

The CANDIDATES in 2000.

DEMOCRAT: AL GORE.

Clinton left office with a 68% approval rating, even higher than Reagan. As Clinton's VP it looked like an easy ride to the presidency for Al Gore. It didn't happen as we all know. Gore beat out Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey for the Democratic nomination. He chose Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as his VP mate.

REPUBLICAN: GEORGE W. BUSH.

Bush was born into a wealthy Republican family. His grandfather was a U.S. senator and his father had been president from 1989 to 1993. He was educated at Exeter and Yale and got his MBA from Harvard. A real New England Yank. But he is forever associated with Texas where he unsuccessfuly ran an oil company, unsuccessfully ran for Congress, and partied successfully. (He stopped drinking and became a born-again Christian in 1986, under the influence of the Reverend Billy Graham.) He became governor of Texas in 1994 and in 2000 he was perfectly situated to seek the presidency. He chose Dick Cheney as his VP mate.

The CAMPAIGN in 2000.

Gore lacked Clinton's charisma and didn't make use of Clinton's accomplishments as president - violent crime was at a thirty-year low, the budget was balanced, the government had a surplus, the country was at peace and the economy was on a roll. Gore was upset with Clinton's sexcapades and probably felt it necessary to distance himself from Clinton - but in the process he was distancing himself from the genuine accomplishments of the Clinton administration. Even Karl Rove said that if Gore had paid more attention to the great shape the country was in, "we Republicans should have gotten our brains beaten out."

The Bush stratetists positioned him as a man who was out to bring back to America a sense of decency. He also became a "compassionate conservative" and set out to "reform" Medicare and Social Security and fix the environment. McCain had said in the primaries that, "If he's a reformer, I'm an astronaut." The Republicans also made fun of Gore in his statement about "inventing the internet." Actually, Gore said, "During my service in the Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." According to some people Gore was instrumental in approving research for the "Information Superhighway," which helped transform it from a military communication system into a worldwide networking and information channel.

The Democrats suggested that Bush was an idiot, a sort of chuckling fool. Bush made statements like, "My favorite book was the kid's classic THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR." He claimed that the Democrats wanted "the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." He also said things like "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dreams."

The WINNER was GEORGE W. BUSH (eventually) and he became the 43rd president of the United States.

Bush got 50,456,062 popular and 271 electoral.

Gore got 50,996,582 popular and 266 electoral.

Nader got 2,883,105 popular and 0 electoral.

Gore got over a half million MORE votes than Bush -but didn't become president. WHY? It was because of the electoral college and the U.S. Supreme Court. Without going into detail it came down to the recount in Florida - the Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount and it was in progress when the five conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices ordered the recount to be stopped - and the presidency was handed to George W. Bush. What is funny about the U.S. Supreme Court decision is that conservatives have always been for state's rights but in this case they forgot about that and told the Florida Supreme Court to go to HELL.

The last time the popular vote getter lost in the electoral college was in 1888 between Republican Benjamin Harrison and Democrat Grover Cleveland -Harrison won.

If anything, the 2000 election most closely resembles the Rutherford Hayes vs. Samuel Tilden contest in 1876. Samuel Tilden almost certainly won but had the election stolen from him when Republican "returning boards" in Louisiana, South Carolina, and, yes, Florida, changed the popular vote totals so Hayes would get the electoral votes. So the 2000 and 1876 elections are tied for first place in being the biggest rip-offs in U. S. election history.

It is interesting to note that a Republican won all three of these elections.

My personal opinion is that "Let's get rid of that damn electoral college." It is not democrary to see the popular vote winner lose.

ELECTION #53, 1996. The NASTY-METER is 4.

This will be a short one.

The CANDIDATES in 1996.

DEMOCRAT: BILL CLINTON and REPUBLICAN: BOB DOLE

The Republicans would keep up their attack on Clinton during his first term. They attacked him on Travelgate, Filegate, the Whitewater real estate deal in Arkansas, Vince Foster's suicide, and the Paula Jones' accusation of sexual harassment. Hillary called these attacks part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," and there's plenty of evidence to back that up - including one conservative tycoon who spent years funding efforts to discredit Clinton, to the tune of two million dollars of his own dollars.

But Clinton wasn't called "Slick Willie" for nothing. Clinton turned back the challenge of right-wing Republican congressmen by expertly moving to the center on most issues - from balancing the budget to revamping welfare. When Clinton took on Bob Dole in 1996 he was an incumbent at the helm of a robust economy. He was going to be hard to beat.

The CAMPAIGN in 1996.

Bob Dole had been around Washington D.C. for thirty-five years. He was 72 years old, a wounded WWII veteran, had a dry sense of humor, and had been Gerald Ford's VP choice in 1976. Dole was too moderate for the mood of the Republican Pary in 1996 and never quite convincingly endorsed the party's positions on abortion, crime, or state's rights. He even called Clinton "my opponent, not my enemy," a stance that did not endear him to Clinton haters (and there were a lot of them).

The WINNER was BILL CLINTON and he continued as the 42nd president of the United States.

Clinton got 47,402,357 popular and 379 electoral.

Dole got 39,198,755 popular and 159 electoral.

Perot got 8,085,402 popular and 0 electoral.

ELECTION #52, 1992. The NASTY-METER stays at 10.

QUOTE from Bill Clinton in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention on July 16, 1992: "My fellow Americans, I end tonight where it all began for me-I still believe in a place called Hope, God bless you, and God Bless America."

It is hard to believe that George H.W. Bush got beat in 1992. After the Gulf War in 1990 he had an approval rating of an unbelievable 90%. It appeared he was unbeatable BUT - he reneged on his his "no new taxes' promise of 1988, the national debt had skyrocketed to over four trillion dollars under Reagan, his tax cuts had made for an explosion of wealth for the top 1%, and one in ten Americans was living on food stamps, and one in eight lived below the poverty level. He was vulnerable with these issues plus two other Republicans would give him fits.

The CANDIDATES in 1992.

REPUBLICAN: GEORGE H.W. BUSH.

By the time of the Republican convention in the summer of 1992 Bush's approval ratings had dropped to 40%. His wife Barbara had higher approval ratings than the president-and his dog, Millie, wasn't far behind. And he wouldn't give up his hapless VP, J. Danforth Quayle - it was a mistake not to dump him.

DEMOCRAT: WILLIAM "BILL" CLINTON.

Bill Clinton was the twentieth century version of a "log cabin" presidential candidate. He was born poor in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946. His father had died in a car accident when he was three months old,and his stepfather was an abusive alcoholic. Clinton triumphed over all these circumstances to become a Rhodes scholar, attend Yale Law School, and, in 1978, became the governor of Arkansas at thirty-two years old. He won on the first ballot and chose Senator Al Gore of Tennessee as his VP running mate.

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE: ROSS PEROT.

Perot was from Texas and had founded a data retrieval firm called EDS in 1962 and turned it into a billion-dollar company. He financed his own campaign.

The CAMPAIGN in 1992.

The Republicans went after Clinton in three main ways:

-The first was Clinton's sex life. The Republican sleaze-meisters whispered that Clinton had had a child with a black woman, was a rapist, a sexual predator, and had felt up a woman in the bathroom at his own wedding. The only attack that partially stuck was when Gennifer Flowers, a nightclub singer and a former Arkansas state employee, claimed they had had a twelve-year relationship. Clinton denied it and did damage control on "60 Minutes" when he only admitted he had caused "pain in my marriage." It was enough to somewhat defuse the situation.

- A second way was Clinton smoking marijuana. This one was not a big factor. Clinton brushed it off by saying, "but I didn't inhale." I have a feeling that many voters didn't really care if Clinton had smoked marijuana - many of them had done so, also. (By the way that quote is still up brought up at times in 2012.)

- A third way the Republicans attacked Clinton was that he was a draft-dodger. Maybe "dodge" was too strong a word, but he had avoided military service until he lucked into a high draft lottery number.

Even one wealthy Republican businessman spent $40,000 of his own money digging for dirt that would torpedo Clinton. It did little good.

When Clinton jumped out to a 13 point lead in the polls the Republicans got so nervous they sought advice from British Prime Minister John Major, who had won despite a weak economy and poor personal ratings. Their only suggestion was to plaster pictures of Gennifer Flowers on huge billboards all over the country above the words, "AND NOW HE WANTS TO SCREW THE COUNTRY, TOO.)

Bush tried to get at Clinton and the Democrats in other ways. He called them"cultural elitists" and "tree huggers" and 'atheists" (they "don't even have the three letters G-O-D in their party platform"). He even claimed if Harry Truman were alive he would vote Republican - Harry's daughter, Margaret, vehemently denied it. Bush conveniently forgot how viciously the Republicans had attacked Truman in the 1940s and 1950s. Bush also claimed that "my dog Millie knows more about foreign affairs than those two bozos," referring to Clinton and Gore.

And Quayle did not help matters when he went after Candace Bergen, who played Murphy Brown on the very popular TV show of the same name. Murphy was an anchorwoman who had decided to give birth to a child out of wedlock. Quayle thundered that bearing a child alone "mocks the importance of fathers" and was an example of the "poverty of values" that afflicted TV. It did not go over as many Republicans really liked the Murphy Brown show also. The White House decided that Quayle should change his tune and praise Brown for having the child instead of having an abortion. And then in June Quayle tried to correct an elementary student that he should spell "potato" as "potatoe." It made for another laugh about Quayle's intelligence and his being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

And then there was the Republican "Opposition Research Team." It was created by Lee Atwater with headquarters at the Republican National Headquarters in D.C., and had a $6,000,000 budget. It's job was to find anything that could be used against Clinton. They even went to Little Rock to see what they could find. They came home with thirty file drawers with speculation on Clinton's sex life. The problem was that Bush wouldn't let them use the sexual gossip they had gathered - some felt he was taking the high road, others wondered if the president felt vulnerable to rumors of his own adultery.

None of these attacks seemed to faze Clinton or hurt him in a big way - it is no wonder the Republicans called him "Slick Willie."

The biggest asset the Democrats had was Bill Clinton himself. He was extraordinarily charismatic, handsome, empathetic, and a brilliant "policy wonk" with an impressive memory for details. And The Democrats had the message the people wanted, that message was, "IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID." The debates allowed Clinton to show off his tremendous talents and intelligence.

Ross Perot called his campaign organization "United We Stand America." He crusaded mainly against national debt. With his squeaky drawl, jug-handle ears, and love of pie charts, he was a little like everyone's old high-school math teacher.

The WINNER was BILL CLINTON and he became the 42nd president of the United States.

Clinton got 44,908,254 popular and 370 electoral.

Bush got 39,102,282 popular and 168 electoral.

Perot got 19,741,048 popular and 0 electoral.

Perot got 19% of the vote and hurt Bush the most which enabled Clinton to win. Clinton only got 43% of the vote, the lowest percentage of the popular vote since Woodrow Wilson beat Taft and Roosevelt (with 41%) in 1912. Clinton was only 46 years old.

ELECTION #51, 1988. The MASTY-METER skyrockets to 10+++

QUOTE from Lee Atwater, George H.W. Bush's campaign manager - he was saying what he was going to do to Michael Dukakis: "I will strip the bark off the little bastard."

The election of 1988 was one of the dirtiest, nastiest, bitterest, meanest, despicable and racist elections in U.S. history. It set the tone for the campaigns that followed in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008.

The CANDIDATES in 1988.

REPUBLICAN: GEORGE H.W. BUSH.

Bush was the natural person to be the Republican nominee in 1988. He had been Reagan's VP for eight years and had a very distinguished career: a rich New England kid, hero of WWII, ambassador to the UN, and CIA head. But many Americans didn't feel they knew him. One of the reasons was many people couldn't understand what he was saying. He not only mumbled but was prone to saying stupid things like: "I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism and anti-racism" and "I'm going to make sure that everyone who has a job, wants a job." But he had one thing going for him - he was tall.

DEMOCRAT: MICHAEL DUKAKIS.

Poor Michael was only five-eight-inches- thus proving the truth of the ancient proverb: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a short dude to enter the White House." His record as governor of Massachusetts was very good - he turned around the state's faltering economy and did a lot to help the state's most needy citizens. But he was a boring speaker and he sported the worst five o'clock shadow since Nixon.

The CAMPAIGN in 1988.

It was nasty because Lee Atwater made it so. His strategy was to portray every negative he could think of - whether they were truthful or not. Here are some of the sleaziest and most racist ads that Atwater turned out:
- He focused his negativity on a 39-year-old black convict from Mass. named William Horton. When Dukakis was governor Horton had taken part in a weekend furlough. Instead of returning to prison he fled to Maryland where he raped a white woman and stabbed her white fiance. The colors matter here because the Republicans proceeded to make the most racist attacks in modern American election history.

- To begin with, the Republicans changed his name. His name was William and he had always been called that by everybody that knew him - including his mom, family, enemies, cops, and parole officers. Even newspaper accounts of his crimes referred to him as William. And yet the Republicans attack ads called him "WILLIE."

- What kind of attacks ads? Here are a few samples:

--"Get out of Jail Free Card": Modeled after the Monopoly card and distributed to 400,000 Texas voters, this tiny mailbox stuffer read: "Michael Dukakis is the killer's best friend and the decent honest citizen's worst enemy."
--"Pro-Family Letter": This was the Maryland Republican party fund-raising letter that featured photographs of Willie Horton and Michael Dukakis over the headline: "Is This Your Pro-Family Team for 1988?"
--"Weekend Passes": A 60-second TV spot with side-by-side pictures of Horton and Dukakis, looking remarkably alike.
--"Revolving Door": Perhaps most famous of all, this stark black and white TV spot showed convicts marching through a turnstile into jail and immediately back out again. It didn't matter that the "convicts" were out-of-work Republicans instructed not to shave for the day.
--And the Republicans even tried to claim that Chicago mass murderer John Wayne Gacy would be released on furlough if Dukakis was elected.

The Democrats tried to fight back but not much really worked. They tried to make an issue of VP nominee Dan Quayle being a heartbeat away from the presidency. And they tried to suggest that Bush had indulged in extramarital affairs and had pursued some shady oil connections, but none of these had any real impact on the election.

The WINNER was GEORGE H.W. BUSH and he became the 41st president of the United States.

Bush got 48,886,097 popular and 426 electoral.

Dukakis got 41,809,074 popular and 112 electoral.

ELECTION #50, 1984. The NASTY-METER is 2.

QUOTE from Ronald Reagan in speech at the Brandenburg, Berlin, June 12, 1987. " Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

The CANDIDATES in 1984.

REPUBLICAN: RONALD REAGAN.

Reagan ran for re-election in 1984. He said "Life in America is back." Well, yes and no. There were more jobs and interest rates were down, but the deficit was skyrocketing , his tax cuts benefitted only the rich, and religious fundamentalists, intolerant of anyone who didn't share their beliefs, were in the acendendancy. Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority gave the benediction at the Republican National Convention, calling Reagan and VP Bush, "God's instruments for rebuilding America."

DEMOCRAT: WALTER MONDALE.

He had been vice-president under Jimmy Carter. He chose New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his VP mate. That was a first in American politics - a woman actually on the ticket.

The CAMPAIGN in 1984.

Reagan was running in time of prosperity and going to be impossible to beat. Mondale was not what you would call charismatic and Ferraro wasn't much better. The only thing about Reagan that people thought about was his age (73) and his memory. He could not remember the name of his national security advisor, Bud McFarlane. And he was prone to misstatements such as: "Now we're trying to get unemployment to go up. I think we are going to succeed." Regardless, it didn't make any difference as he won in a landslide - remember he was the teflon man.

The WINNER was RONALD REAGAN and he continued as the 40th president of the United States.

Reagan got 54,455,075 popular and 525 electoral.

Mondale got 37,577,185 popular and 13 electoral.

Ouch.

ELECTION #49, 1980. The NASTY-METER goes up to 4.

QUOTE from Ronald Reagan after being shot on March 30, 1981: "Honey,I forgot to duck."

The CANDIDATES in 1980.

DEMOCRAT: JIMMY CARTER.

Things weren't looking good for Carter when he ran for re-election in 1980: there had been double- digit inflation; in July, 1979, 75% of the gas stations of New York were forced to close; Ted Kennedy had challenged Carter for the nomination and the party torn apart; the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; over 400 Americans were taken hostage in Iran; a rescue attempt of the hostages had failed miserably with the death of eight marines; and Americans didn't want to hear from President Carter that austerity measures were needed to revive the economy. It was going to be an uphill battle for Jimmy. He kept Mondale as his VP mate.

REPUBLICAN: RONALD REAGAN.

Reagan, at age 69, was handsome, smiling, and a star of such movie classics as GIRLS ON PROBATION, KNUTE ROCKNE - ALL AMERICAN, and the beloved BEDTIME FOR BONZO. He had been governor of California. He was about to run a campaign with a whole lot of secrecy. His campaign manager was William Casey, the future CIA director. He chose George H.W. Bush as his VP mate.

The CAMPAIGN in 1980.

Reagan had a great campaign slogan: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" With the "misery index" at an all-time high of 22% a lot of Americans had to answer a resounding "NO."

The Democratic strategy was to strike hard at Reagan by comparing and contrasting Carter with Reagan. They would attack in four ways:
1. Carter was safe/sound --- Reagan was untested.
2. Carter was young, age 55 --- Reagan was old, age 69.
3. Carter was vigorous --- Reagan was old.
4. Carter was smart ---Reagan was dumb.

It turned out that whatever Carter tried it didn't stick - Ronnie was becoming the teflon man and it would continue throughout his eight years as president.

The biggest issue in the campaign was the Iran hostage situation. Carter tried his hardest to pull an October surprise - which would be the release of the hostages. The Republicans knew this and they pulled off their own surprise. William Casey, Reagan's campaign manager, met with Iranian cleric Mehdi Karroubi in August of 1980. He offered military assistance to Iran if they would wait until Reagan won the election. Afraid that the Iranians would double-cross them and work with the Carter administration Casey and other Republicans met with the Iranians again in October and sweetened the deal by offering more guns and the unfreezing of Iranian cash in U.S. banks - but only if the hostage release was delayed until Reagan's swearing in on January 20, 1981, so that Carter would get absolutely no credit. Ayatollah Khomeini approved the deal. In the meantime, Casey had his network of retired military officers monitor U.S. air force bases for any sign of unusual activity, which might indicate a Carter deal with some other faction in Iran.
The Reagan/Casey deal worked - when Reagan was sworn in on January 20, 1981, the hostages (already sitting in an airplane on the tarmac in Tehran)), were flown to Germany - a few days later the weapons from the U.S. began arriving in Iran. When Reagan was asked about contact with Iran during the campaign he answered, "Not by me, No. But I can't go into details. Some of those things are still classified."

And another thing happened that I did not no about in this 1980 campaign. It is an indisputable fact that Carter's predebate briefing book was stolen and given to Reagan's people before their October 28 debate so that the Gipper would have all the right rebuttals to Carter's attacks - and he did with his famous line, "There you go again, Mr President." There was obviously a Republican spy inside the Carter campaign team. In a 1983 Congressional investigation it was confirmed that Reagan campaign manager William Casey had recieved "classified reports on closely held Carter administration intelligence on the Carter campaign and the Democratic president's efforts to liberate the hostages." Reagan never denied that the briefing book was stolen.


The WINNER was Ronald Reagan and he became the 40th president of the United States.

Reagan got 43,899,248 popular and 489 electoral.

Carter got 35,481,435 popular and 49 electoral.

ELECTION #48, 1976. The NASTY-METER GOES DOWN TO 2.

QUOTE from President Ford in 1974 shortly after he assumed the presidency: "I grant Richard Nixon a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he might have committed."

Twenty members of the Nixon administration were convicted after the Watergate dust had settled; that's not including VP Spiro Agnew, who resigned after pleading no contest to non-Watergate related tax-evasion charges. And Nixon might have been indicted if he hadn't been pardoned by President Gerald Ford.

The CANDIDATES in 1976.

REPUBLICAN: GERALD FORD.

Ford, as VP, became President on August 8, 1976 - the day Nixon resigned. Ford was chosen as VP when Agnew resigned in 1973 over charges of tax evasion. Ford was a good man and someone who could be trusted, unlike his boss. He narrowly beat out Ronald Reagan for the nomination at the Republican Convention in July, 1976. He chose Nelson Rockefeller for his VP running mate.

DEMOCRAT: JIMMY CARTER.

Jimmy Carter said this about himself: "I am a Southerner and an American, I am a farmer, an engineer, a father and husband, a Christian, a politician and former governor of Georgia, a planter, a businessman, a nuclear physicist, a naval officer, a canoeist, and among other things a lover of Bob Dylan's songs and Dylan Thomas's poetry." He chose Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota as his VP mate.

The CAMPAIGN in 1976.

Ford's decision to pardon Nixon would come back to haunt him. He had a habit of doing and saying dumb things: like stumbling down the steps of Air Force One during official business; like hitting people when driving the golf ball; like saying that Eastern European countries weren't under the control of the USSR; and worst of all was pardoning Nixon.

Carter ran on the theme that he was an outsider coming to clean up Washington. But he also did some dumb things: like admitting that, in his mind, he had committed adultery many times when looking at women; saying that Lyndon Johnson was as guilty as Richard Nixon when it came to "lying, cheating, and distorting the truth." (it was true but it did make for political foolishness); and giving speeches that were so boring that Senator McCarthy of Minnesota called him "an oratorical mortician". The best thing Carter had going for him was that he was running against Gerald Ford.

The WINNER was JIMMY CARTER and he became the the 39th president of the United States.

Carter got 40,830,763 popular and 297 electoral.

Ford got 39,147,770 popular and 240 electoral.

ELECTION #47, 1972. The NASTY-METER is 10++.

QUOTE from the book ANYTHING for a VOTE. "In the Dirty Tricks Hall of Fame, Richard Nixon deserves a seat of honor."

The 1972 campaign will be synonymous with the words "dirty tricks."

The CANDIDATES in 1972.

REPUBLICAN: RICHARD NIXON.

Nixon had great success in foreign affairs in his first term. But he had failed to get out of Vietnam, four students were killed at Kent State College, and over 200,000 had marched on Washington D.C. to protest the war and his policies. Nixon had walled himself inside his presidency, sticking close to the White House and relying on the same group of advisors and rich friends for comfort and advice.

DEMOCRAT: GEORGE MCGOVERN.

McGovern was a former history and political science teacher turned senator from South Dakota. He was affable and low-key but not very exciting. He screwed himself at the convention when he gave his acceptance speech at 2:48 A.M.(nobody was watching) and screwed himself again when he chose Senator Thomas Eagleton Missouri of Missouri for his VP running mate.

The CAMAPIGN in 1972.

The first thing the Republicans did was disclose that Eagleton had been treated for clinical depression from 1960 to 1966, including electroshock therapy. McGovern said he supported Eagleton "one thousand percent." He later backed off and chose Sargent Shriver. The Republicans used this to paint McGovern as indecisive and a man who did not stand by his friends.

Nixon's strategy was to make appearances only in the Rose Garden and at carefully controlled campaign events.

Here is a list of some of the "Dirty Tricks" Nixon and the Republicans used in 1972:

-- When Nixon mined the Haiphong Harbor the N.Y. Times had a full page ad opposing the mining. The next day a full page ad appeared in the paper from 14 concerned "citizens" supporting Nixon's actions. The only trouble with the 14 was they were all relatives of members of Nixon's campaign committee (known as the Committee to Re-Elect the President - also known as CREEP). CREEP also sent thousands of pro-Nixon postcards to a D.C. television station that was taking a public-opinion poll on the mining of Haiphong, resulting in an outcome ot 3-1 in support of the president actions.


-- Nixon also had an enemies list. He ordered a special group of the Internal Revenue Service to do "field audits" on his so-called enemies, (he had over 200 on the list). How did Nixon know who his enemies were? The list was compiled by his aides John Dean and Chuck Colson. One example was Paul Newman because he had been involved in "Radic-Lib" causes. Another was black Congressman John Conyers because he supposedly had a "weakness for white females." A third was an ad man named Maxwell Dane who had helped produce the famous Lyndon Johnson "Daisy" ad in 1964.

-- Nixon had ordered the formation of the most famous group of tricksters in American history. They were called the "Special Investigations Unit, but became better known as the "Plumbers." Nixon put his aide John Erlichman in charge. The Plumbers went a little too far in their sneaky tricks. On June 17, 1972 they were caught by a night watchman inside the offices of the Democratic National Convention in the Watergate apartment and office complex in D.C. They were wearing surgical gloves and carried bugging equipment (tiny microphones hidden in phony ChapSticks), cameras, forty rolls of unexposed film, and $3,500 in brand-new, consecutively numbered hundred-dollar bills. The next day Nixon's Press Secretary dismissed it as "a third-rate burglary." It so, it was the only third-rate burglary to eventually cause the resignation of an American president. (They had actually broken in on Memorial Day - undetected - to install listening devices. Since the bugs weren't working properly, the Plumbers went back.)

-- Nixon referred to McGovern as the candidate of the "three A's: Acid, Amnesty (for draft dodgers), and Abortion."

-- The Plumbers took down Edmund Muskie with a whole range of tricks. With Nixon standing at 48% in the polls in early 1972 and with Muskie appearing to be the most likely Democratic candidate (and a strong one)the Plumbers were ordered to bring down Muskie.
1. One of their first tricks was before the New Hampshire primary when voters there began to get phone calls at all hours of the night. The callers identified themselves being black and said they had been bused in from Harlem to work for Muskie.

William Loeb, the conservative editor of the MANCHESTER UNION LEADER published a letter, purportedly written by an ordinary citizen, accused Muskie of using the word "Canuck" to refer to French Canadians. It turned out the letter was written by Nixon's White House aide Kenneth Clawson.

3. In the Florida primary the Plumbers placed posters on Florida highways that read: "Help Muskie in Busing More Children Now."

4. They placed ads in free shopper's newsletters saying: "Muskie Would you accept a black running mate?

The end result was Muskie placed 4th in Florida and his campaign for the presidency was over. The Plumbers had done their job.

The WINNER was RICHARD NIXON who continued for two more years as our 37th president.

Nixon got 47,169,911 popular and 520 electoral.

McGovern got 29,170,383 popular and 17 electoral.

The victory party would be over in two years as the details of the Watergate break-in became known.
When the American people got to hear the tapes of their president doing business - what they heard was not pleasant. On August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned.