The Original American A**hole Campaigner: John James Beckley (Madison/Jefferson's Man)

[CorpGovActivist]

... the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Beckley">first Librarian of Congress and the first Clerk of the House.

The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckley%2C_West_Virginia">county seat of my birth county (where I was born, and where we moved from the county outskirts when I was 16) is named in his honor.

"In 1796 he managed the Jefferson campaign in Pennsylvania, blanketing the state with agents who passed out 30,000 hand-written tickets, naming all 15 electors (printed tickets were not allowed). Thus he told one agent, 'In a few days a select republican friend from the City will call upon you with a parcel of tickets to be distributed in your County. Any assistance and advice you can furnish him with, as to suitable districts & characters, will I am sure be rendered. He is one of two republican friends, who have undertaken to ride thro' all the middle & lower counties on this business, and bring with them 6 or 8 thousand tickets.' Beckley thus became the first American professional campaign manager."

When you have Beckley's blood flowing in your veins (not to mention access to the special collections that Jefferson entrusted to him), one comes by certain traits quite honestly (no trust fund required).

- Dave

P.S. Happy New Year to today's modern "a**shole campaigners" - even the Clintonites - who roll up their sleeves, do the actual work, and don't puerilely pontificate, too afraid to soil their http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2552440&mesg_id=2552440">Fauntleroy collars, or trample the pansies.

[CorpGovActivist]

1. Library of Congress, Justifying Jefferson: The Political Writings of John James Beckley...

... edited by Gerard W. Gawalt, is http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1996/96-076.html">a very good read for those who think that the rough-and-tumble of politics these days is something new, or unsavory.

- Dave

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Dignified political campaign = oxymoron.

The only real difference is that the campaigns have gotten much, much, longer, which allows the accumulation of shit to deepen and smell more.

[CorpGovActivist]

3. The Compost Pile...

... of malodoros data pertaining to the Clintons is a landfill in need of a barge.

; )

- Dave

[CorpGovActivist]

4. At Best, We Can Hope for Humorists Like Barney Frank...

... and if you don't get LOGO via your cable carrier, http://www.logoonline.com/shows/dyn/lets_get_frank/series.jhtml">the webcasts are worth a watch.

- Dave

[CorpGovActivist]

5. John Adams - Boston Brahmin - Huffed and Puffed about Beckley...

... who according to http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=john+adams+beckley&spell=1">the Library of Congress is credited with "first bringing Thomas Paine's Rights of Man to the attention of Madison so he could use it as a rebuttal to John Adams's monarchist Discourses on Davilla."

http://books.google.com/books?id=2mAsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA504&lpg=PA504&dq=john+adams+beckley&source=web&ots=d8KrklV5Dv&sig=v4IzqC4S6UdRdNQoV9Mnd_dH5No">Jefferson himself credited Beckley in a letter to Adams.

- Dave