Rick Lowe
"Nothing new under he sun" might seem like a cliche but it's true.
How about these quotes from the US election of 1800.
"John Adams is a blind, bald, toothless man who wants to start a war with France. While he's not busy importing mistresses from Europe he's trying to marry one of his sons to a daughter of King George. Haven't we had enough Monarchy in America?" Thomas Jefferson
"John Adams is a hideous and hermaphroditical character with neither the force and firmness of a man or the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." Thomas Jefferson
"If Thomas Jefferson wins, robbery, rape and incest will be openly taught and practiced. The air will be wrent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood and the air black with crimes. Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames, female chastity violated, children writhing on a pike?" John Adams
Back in the 17 and 1800's they did not have You Tube, Facebook, and Twitter or e-mail to get their messages around, but it goes to show that there really is nothing new under the sun when it comes to nasty politics.
Did things change in the 1960's? In a BBC article by Andrew Marr entitled, President John F Kennedy and the art of dirty politics, confirms there was little change.
"And yet… Kennedy beat Nixon not simply with his ads, his sound bites, his jingles, the carefully posed photographs and the downright lies he told about his health. He beat Nixon by not standing for anything beyond rousing banalities." More…
And in The Bahamas today, it's no different.
In the final, will symbolism over substance and nasty campaigning win the upcoming election, or have we grown past all that and will vote based on facts and performance both past and present?
