...and how about all those political ads (from both sides) for the gubernatorial election in Virginia, which thankfully will be ending today? The NFL telecasts this past Sunday were almost unwatchable.
I saw a pretty outrageous one for AG this AM. I had not seen it before. It kind of reminds me of the old tactic of leaking crud on election day so it can't be rebutted.
In the 1960s, I think it was an AG race in Mass between Elliott Richardson and Frank Bellotti, and on the day of the election, one of the elite papers in Boston at the time ran a story about reports of Bellotti and some organized crime connection. They retracted it the next day, which didn't do Frank any good
Edit - it was even better than this. In 1964, Bellotti knocked off Chubb Peabody, the sitting governor from his own party, in a primary for Governor. Peabody was a Harvard elite Boston Brahmin guy by blood. The Rs nominated John Volpe, the former governor Peabody had beat in 1962. The Brahmins always hated Bellotti and had a big whisper campaign against Bellotti for mob ties, which was OK because the beneficiary, Volpe, was Italian. I forget if the story about the well-placed article was in that election or the AG - I'm thinking the 1964 election. The story gets weirder. Also on the ballot in 1964 for AG was Ed Brooke as an R. In 1966, Brooke gave up the AG seat to run for the Senate, so that led to the Richardson / Bellotti AG race. Richardson jumped all over the rumors that Bellotti had mob ties and demanded Brooke investigate him in the weeks before the election. There was not a scintilla of evidence, so Brooke did the right thing and refused. I think both Richardson and Brooke ended up winning, but Bellotti was eventually exonerated, eventually won election for AG, and became the longest serving AG in state's history.
