When I was just turned twenty in 1976, I worked for the Jimmy Carter for President campaign. I was a lowly \u201cfield coordinator\u201d, one of those bottom level organizers who had direct contact with student groups, union locals, county party organizations. We organized door-to-door walks, literature drops, and the ever-present \u201csign\u201d campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I travelled from near Dayton to the Ohio River, delivering materials, planning activities, and sleeping in the back of my Volkswagen station wagon on some nights.\u00a0\u00a0I learned a lot, including to never, ever, take the VW to a United Auto Workers union hall.\u00a0The old UAW local President put his big arm lovingly around my shoulders, and quietly told me to get another car or not to come back. From then on, I borrowed Dad\u2019s Olds\u2019 Cutlass for the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My boss was a guy from Nebraska named Mike Jackson.\u00a0\u00a0He looked like a lineman from the Cornhuskers, not the \u201cother Jackson\u201d, and he was a forty-some year old veteran sent in to win Southwestern Ohio for Carter\/Mondale.\u00a0\u00a0He had learned from the best, starting his political life working for Hubert Humphrey.\u00a0\u00a0And he told us stories, late at night over cheap Hudepohl beer while we printed signs on his homemade screen printer, stories of a campaign legend named Dick Tuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dick Tuck was the Democratic \u201cmaster\u201d of the dirty trick. He originally was a \u201cKennedy\u201d man, and became famous for doing things to Humphrey in the hotly contested 1960 primaries. They were dirty tricks with flair. Humphrey did a \u201cwhistle-stop\u201d train tour of West Virginia. While he was standing at the caboose, speaking to an assembled crowd, Tuck signaled the engineer to \u201cpull out\u201d. All Humphrey could do was wave goodbye. Tuck called and cancelled Humphrey rallies, gave Humphrey drivers bad directions, and was all-around annoying to the Humphrey team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eight years later Tuck was working for Humphrey and needed a large crowd in a downtown area. His trick then: buy junk cars and stall them in the major intersections. After gridlock occurred, send in the candidate. With people motionless in their cars, they got out to see what was going on \u2013 and a crowd was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tuck was so good, that the 1972 Nixon campaign hired him to do: nothing. They just wanted Tuck to leave them alone. But the Nixon campaign had plenty of \u201cdirty tricksters\u201d of their own. It wasn\u2019t just the Watergate break-in, it was a fake letters published in newspapers, fake workers pretending to be Communists for a Democrats, and perhaps even drugging opposing candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nixon didn\u2019t want to run against Ed Muskie, and sent the full force of his \u201cdirty tricksters\u201d against him in the primaries. Muskie lost. Nixon wanted to run against a more liberal Senator George McGovern from South Dakota. McGovern won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We wanted to \u201cbe like Dick\u201d. In October of 1976, President Gerald Ford was coming to town. The other Field Coordinators and I had a great \u201cdirty trick\u201d idea. As Ford was speaking on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati, we would unfurl a large Carter\/Mondale sign from atop a nearby abandoned building. The action would be sure to attract both the crowds and the medias attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we went to the top of the decrepit building, carefully avoiding holes in the roof, and prepared our sign. We were young, so young. Of course we told the Secret Service what we were doing on a rooftop overlooking the President, we didn\u2019t want to get shot. And the Service said we were fine, but intentionally didn\u2019t bother to tell the Cincinnati Police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About thirty minutes before Ford arrived we looked out over the scene, to see white-shirted policemen pointing to our roof, like a picture of Dealey Plaza in Dallas after the Kennedy assassination.\u00a0\u00a0We ran for the stairs, but were met halfway down by a phalanx of officers, who made it very clear we were in the wrong.\u00a0\u00a0The Secret Service detail laughed as we were hauled out, but didn\u2019t let the Police know until after the President was done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like everything else in today\u2019s society, campaign \u201cdirty tricks\u201d are \u201ccrowd-sourced\u201d. Now you don\u2019t have to risk the Police, or Secret Service, you can just put an idea out online and let it catch fire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One example is conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt was a \u201cNever-Trumper\u201d, right up until the moment Trump won, and Hewitt\u2019s son got hired at the EPA. Then Hewitt did a full reversal, and ever since has been a Trump apologist. A few weeks ago Hewitt publicly announced that he was voting in the Virginia Primary for Bernie Sanders. His argument was that he wanted \u201c\u2026a clear choice\u201d for President, but ultimately this Trump sycophant was sending a message to the Trump base: rig the Virginia primary for Bernie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republican voters don\u2019t have much to do this primary season. Hewitt\u2019s \u201cdirty trick\u201d is catching fire. Here in Ohio, where you are required to \u201cdeclare\u201d your Party, there is a movement to get \u201cTrumpers\u201d to cross-over, even if requires them to lie on an affidavit stating they voted at least 50% Democratic in the last election. The Trump camp is operating on the assumption that they can choose their opponent, just like the Nixon team did in 1972. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump team also crowd-sourced disruption of the already confused Iowa Democratic Caucus tally.\u00a0\u00a0The back-up phone number for entering results was published on Trumpian web sites, and they helped jam all lines.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s easy with crowd sourcing; there is no one \u201ctrickster\u201d to blame.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump broke American laws and suffered impeachment to tarnish Joe Biden.\u00a0\u00a0While Biden has his own electoral problems, it\u2019s difficult to determine how much impact the Ukraine scandal has had on his candidacy.\u00a0\u00a0I hear from many younger voters, \u201c\u2026Biden is just a dirty politician like the rest\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He wasn\u2019t, until Trump made his son Hunter a household word.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now Trump and his minions have made it clear they want to run against Sanders.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fellow Democrats, this doesn\u2019t mean that you shouldn\u2019t support Bernie, if he\u2019s your guy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But don\u2019t be surprised if you look around and see fellow voters in MAGA hats. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"