This one is for my co-blogger Paul, not the biggest fan, to put it mildly, of the Third President of the United States. I think that when it comes to personal vilification, the Presidential campaign of 1800 still claims pride of place, with each candidate accused of every vice imaginable except, perhaps, of cannibalism. If television had been available in 1800 the attack ads would have been sulphurous.
We Americans may rightly complain of the low tone of many of our election campaigns, but we cannot deny they have been part of the way we as a people have conducted politics from the very beginning of our experiment in democracy.
Donald R. McClarey
Paul Zummo
Almost Chosen People 
I always point to the 1800 election whenever anyone talks about how much more vitriolic and partisan our politics have become. I don’t think the parody ad would be far at all from what an actual ad would have looked like.
[…] regard to the vilification ladled on the Presidential contenders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a subject I discussed in this post. One may deplore negative politics, but I suspect that it is part and parcel of the electoral […]