Some things never change in Presidential campaigns. People say they don’t want mud-slinging yet they watch the “debates”. Why? They aren’t going to hear either candidate say anything fresh. No, they watch to see and hear one of them blast the other and look virtuous doing it. They want the slammed one to wilt or, better yet, cry. They have a fantasy of a fist fight breaking out. If it wasn’t for that hope no one would be watching. No one cares as it is.

“They ought to make ‘em wrestle”, Joe says as he quaffs another beer.

“Yea, naked and in mud”, Freddie adds on.

“You twit, I don’ wanna see them two dudes buck naked. In fact, I’d like you to move down a seat”, Joe replies.

In the 1828 campaign incumbent President John Quincy Adams called Andrew Jackson’s mother a whore. A man with Quincy in his name bad-mouthed the mom of a guy who liked violence. Jackson was tall and mean. Adams was a soft, little man. Presidents didn’t have Secret service agents to protect him then. All he had was male secretary who managed to stay as far away from the Oval Office as he could. After all, the White House didn’t have a lock on the door.

In 1892 former President Grover Cleveland admitted to fathering a child to a young, unmarried woman. This was the Victorian age when you just didn’t do that sort of thing. Well, you did but you lied about it when caught. The incumbent President, Benjamin Harrison had his crowd make a big to do about it. Harrison’s big claim to fame and power was that his grandfather had been President, sort of. Old Harrison made a long, boring, forgettable inauguration speech, went to bed, and died a month later. His claim to fame was that he never made a mistake as President.

Anyway, Cleveland owned up to his picadillo but he was still pissed off at Harrison. In November he beat the daylights out of Benjamin Harrison. He also won the election. Jackson also won the election. Adams didn’t wait until his term ended before he scooted back to New England.