Dirty Tricks, South Carolina and the President of the United States

A long long time ago, I worked for a summer at my hometown weekly newspaper in South Carolina. The New Irmo News was based out of a strip mall in a little office sandwiched between Winn Dixie and a famous local restaurant called, of course, Lizard’s Thicket (the photo on the right is Huckabee campaigning at the Thicket). The man who ran the outfit, and who gave me my first job at a newspaper, was named Rod Shealy, an old time political man who started the newspaper basically because he could convince anyone of anything and wanted to prove it. He was quite a sight sitting behind his huge mahogony desk in his trademark Hawaiian shirt, feet up, cigar in hand. Sounds like a vision from stereotypeland, I know, but its true. He always called me college boy, mostly, I think, because he was proud that he never went to college. Instead he “got his education” running campaigns and, secretly, I was always jealous of this.

Now he says he is a “reformed bad boy” (and blogger) but he continues to be a political strategist of some standing. He ran Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in SC in the 80s and the notoriously rough and ready campaigns of former two-term Governor Carroll Campbell (as close as you get to political royalty in South Carolina). He also “studied” (if that is the right word) with Lee Atwater, the former Reagan/Bush strategist and author of some the bloodiest campaigns the South has ever seen (including the Willie Horton ad that basically knocked Dukakis out of the race in ‘88). If nothing else, Rod and Atwater are symbols for how campaigns work in the South, especially because South Carolina traditionally represents the beginning of the second, more nasty, phase of the primary cycle. As Rod said in a fascinating recent American documentary on Dirty Poltics, “when you are limping out of Iowa or New Hampshire, you pull out all the stops”.

And it has started already: there are reports of a Christmas card allegedly from the Romney family being delivered to SC Republicans that quotes a controversial Mormon passage on polygamy (which was outlawed by the church a 100 years ago), Obama is having a hard time shaking the spurious Madrassa claims, Mike Huckabee has been the victim of some nasty flyering on his anti-Southern credentials and so-called push polling has been widespread. The goal of this kind of smear is not to make everyone believe but to make it just credible and just prevalent enough to force the mainstream media to cover it because, as Rod says, “once it hits the nightly news, some people will believe it–not everybody, but some people”. Yes, even in a world run by bloggers–and this is partly Rod’s genius–the local nightly news still means something in the state-by-state political reality of the American presidential election.

What is particularly interesting is how the attacks in the South seem to concentrate on the spark points of religion, race, and national security. I suppose its no surprise. Take my homeland: South Carolina. It is the first state to vote with a significant African-American population, has a strong evangelical contingent and is home to several large and important military installations. Its the perfect mix for some juicy accusations. Just look at this Georgia ad directed against Vietnam hero Max Cleland who lost both of his legs and his right arm in the war. It starts with provocative imagery of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Huissen and goes on to question Cleland’s courage. Keep in mind he lost three limbs in war. If this and other dirty tricks are any indication, its going to be a nasty (and incredibly interesting) few months. I am sure Rod would approve.

1 comment January 10th, 2008