Sour campaign comment easy to sweeten

Aberdeen American News ^ | June 2, 2004 | Art Marmorstein

[ancientart]

Presidential elections during the last quarter of the 19th century tended to be exceedingly close, so close that a single campaign mistake could easily cost an election. In 1884, for instance, Republican candidate James G. Blaine ran into problems when one of his supporters called the Democrats the party of "rum, Romanism and rebellion." Blaine's failure to immediately disassociate himself from the obviously anti-Catholic slur cost him thousands of Irish Catholic votes, the popular vote in New York, and, as it turned out, the presidency.

...

Recently, South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson had a Lott moment of his own. At a campaign rally in Sioux Falls, Johnson boasted, "When Stephanie Herseth fills this seat, we are going to have a rising star in the House of Representatives. And how sweet it's going to be on June 2 when the Taliban wing of the Republican Party finds out what's happened in South Dakota."

Unsurprisingly, Sen. Johnson's remarks created a bit of a tempest and Republicans called for an immediate apology.

[anonymous_user]

"small group of Republican leaders" who had compared him to Osama bin Laden in the 2002 campaign. Tit-for-tat.

It should be pointed out that the television ad showed a picture of Saddam Hussein and criticized Johnson for votes in Congress against a missile defense system.

About the only truth to that statement is that it was in 2002.