Mudslingers Used To Be Worse

Kerwin Swint has just come out with a new book that ranks the 25 nastiest political campaigns in U.S. History. According to Swint, the Bush-Dukakis showdown is the only member of the 25 elite to be less than 20 years old. This means of course, that although campaigning seems nasty now, it was apparently even dirtier before.

After reviewing the 1988 election, it's hard to define it as anything but dirty, even if you were a Bush supporter (he did most of the mudslinging). Of Bush's 9 televised ads, 3 of them focused on Dukakis's opposition to the death penalty, which is largely a state issue. Here's a link to a Bush/Quayle ad that displays Dukakis's "revolving door" prison policy.