As the Mud Hits the Fan

The preliminaries are over, and all the posturing is complete. Now things will start to happen...no, not the Olympics. They are over, but I will return to them in a day or so for the wrapup. I'm talking serious "bidness" (as they say down home) here: that part of politics in which a candidate gets down and dirty trying to make his or her opponent seem an unlikely choice...or worse. Lest you think this custom which has become as frequent as it is effective is a new tack, it is not. Like so many other portions of American culture, this hallowed tradition dates back to our founding fathers. In fact, it dates back to the only time a president was pitted against his vice president in an election for the nation's highest office! "Who were these combatants?" I hear you ask. None other than President John Adams and his vice-president Thomas Jeffereson. Oh yeah, the gloves came off for that one, and the Marquis of Queensbury was NOT consulted.
President Adams was villified by Jeffereson as " a hideous hermaphroditical character," while Adams retorted with a description of his opponent as "mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."
AND IT GOT WORSE!
Jefferson was referred to as a "weakling, an atheist, a coward and a libertine" by the first president ever to have a son also become president (and how has THAT tradition worked for us?)
Matha Washington chimed in to insist that Jefferson was "one of the most detestable of mankind." No word on how George felt.
Jefferson, though, showed a political savvy beyond anything previously seen (before VP candidates became hatchet men). He hired James Callender to slander President Adams as a "fool, hypocrite,criminal and tyrant." Callender did such a fine job of besmirching the Adams name that a) Jefferson won the election and b) Callender was jailed for slander.
In an ironic "turnabout-is-fair-play" moment, when Callender was released from prison, he felt that Jefferson still owed him some sort of compensation for his work. Being denied by the President and having no cousin involved in organized crime, Callender then broke the story that Jefferson had fathered five illegitimate children in France with a slave Sally Hemmings. Of course, it was not until 1998 that DNA testing would prove how right Callender was, but the story definitely eroded Jefferson's moral high ground.
And, in a message to all those starring in ongoing conflicts: the Russians and the Georgians, the Pakistanis and the Indians, the Tibetans and the Chinese, the Americans and just about everybody else (it seems), I want to note that Adams and Jefferson eventually reconciled and regained their friendship, being so close that both died on the same day: July 4, 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
See? We CAN all get along; however, just to be sure, I'm wearing old clothes until the election is over and I plan to be vigilant for all the mud that will be flying my way.