Truly Dirty Republican Politics

While the give and take of politics has never been a model of decorum and fair play, it was in the mid 1970s that I first encountered an attempt to distort the truth with a brazen lie. It was in a mayoral race and centered on a beer can. A week before the election the Republican candidate, a prominent figure in the city, was far ahead of his opponent, a local grocer a bit on the crude side. It was so one-sided that few people were even paying attention.
That weekend a Republican flier was distributed to every house in the city. On Monday morning after finishing my rewrites I walked to a nearby tavern where politicians and office holders drank coffee before heading for work. Before I could order a cup, a Democrat office holder hailed me and displayed a copy of the Miami Herald that featured an Associated Press story on the local election. Miami was a thousand miles away. Included was a photo of the grocer standing at a chopping block while wearing an apron stained with what was obviously blood. His can of beer rested on the block. After I gave it a quick glance the Democrat handed me one of the GOP fliers that bore the same photo. He said, "Take a look at the beer cans."
What I saw was a beer can on the flier at least four times larger than the original. It was turned so the label was clearly visible. It wasn't even the brand that the grocer drank. I asked to borrow both the flier and the newspaper, then walked a block to Republican headquarters.

The receptionist wasn't happy when I asked about the flier and told me I would have to talk to Mr. Davis. Jim Davis, who was soon to hit it rich with his Garfield comic strip, was even less pleased to see me. He said I would have to talk to the owner of an advertising agency. I called him and he readily admitted having substituted a larger can for the original. "We do it all the time in advertising," he said.

"Don't you think a political ad is a little different?"
He conceded that it might be. He was and still is a good man venturing into unfamiliar territory.
I went back to the paper and wrote a brief story on the beer cans. The city editor read it over and took it to the managing editor, who gave it a hurried look and picked up the phone. I knew he was calling the publisher, Jim Quayle, a college fraternity brother of the Republican candidate. A minute later Quayle, father of future vice-president Dan Quayle, read my copy and then called me into the managing editor's glass-enclosed office. "I don't think this is a story," he said. "Do you think it's a story?"

"Yes, I think it's a story."

Quayle threw the copy down on the managing editor's desk and stalked out of the office saying, "Then run it." I've always given him credit for that.

It ran in a single, short column on Page One. The result was astounding. People who wouldn't have dreamed of voting for the grocer flooded the paper with calls saying they now would. Labor unions that had remained on the sidelines rushed to back the grocer. He won without difficulty.

I had always gotten along with the Republican candidate and was surprised that he wasn't angry about the story. He claimed he knew nothing about the enlarged beer can. I believed him and still do.

That beer can was a portent of things to come: Republican attack ads that distort the truth or are just outright lies. Willie Horton, swift boats, so many more. It's already starting again. Is winning an election worth sacrificing integrity? Apparently a lot of people believe it is.

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