Karl Rove's dirty trick on John McCain

By Pablo Fanque, national affairs ed.

I recently revised and reprinted an article on Dick Tuck, the master of dirty tricks.  In the course of writing that, I ran into some other famous dirty tricks.  One of the most famous occurred in LBJ's early days on the campaign trail.

In one of his early congressional campaigns, Lyndon B. Johnson told one of his aides to spread the story that Johnson's opponent f****d pigs. The aide responded "Christ, Lyndon, we can't call the guy a pigf***er. It isn't true." To which LBJ replied "Of course it ain't true, but I want to make the son-of-a-bitch deny it." 

A fairly recent dirty trick that never got the attention it deserved is Karl V. Rove’s onslaught against Senator John McCain, who was running for President in the primaries against his boss, George W. Bush.  In 2000, John McCain won the New Hampshire primary and polls showed him ahead in South Carolina. McCain was on the verge of halting Bush's march to the White House and would likely become the nominee.

Rove chose one of the oldest weapons in the book of dirty tricks—the whisper campaign (see sidebar above).  A whisper campaign is spreading malicious and/or embarrassing rumors about your opponent, while making sure the rumors aren't actually traceable back to your campaign.

Two weeks before the election, pamphlets began appearing under windshields at candidate debates with a picture of McCain and his adopted Bangladeshi daughter.  The pamphlets alleged that McCain had an illegitimate African-American daughter.  This charge would cost him votes in a state that had never fully embraced desegregation.

Shortly after the pamphlet bombardment, anonymous pollsters began calling local Republicans to ask if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if he were mentally unstable because of his imprisonment as a POW in Vietnam.

McCain was so pissed off about the attacks that he confronted President Bush in person to demand that he stop; when Bush denied responsibility, McCain replied, “Don’t give me that s**t!” By Election Day, McCain's lead had vaporized and Bush won by 11 points.

With no realistic way now to nail down the nomination, McCain dropped out.  He never forgave Bush for the attacks on his family and wartime heroics.  He got his shot eventually, and went on with his VP nominee Sara Palin to get whipped by BHO.

Related:

Dick Tuck, American Prankster Hero
Teardrops: Glenn Beck, Anthony Weiner, John Boehner and remembering back to when Edmund Muskie's crying speech ended his Presidential campaign

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