Smearing Presidential Candidates' Wives Historically Normal

Clockwise from top left: Heidi Cruz, Melania Trump, Mary Todd Lincoln and Dolley Madison.

Photo: Clockwise from top left: Getty Images; AP; Getty Images; Getty Images

[From article]
A super PAC supporting Ted Cruz kicked things off by tweeting an old photo of Donald Trump’s wife, during her modeling days, lying naked on a fur rug. Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and retweeted an image mocking her appearance.
[. . .]
While a bit shocking, it isn’t really a new low for presidential races. Politics has always been a dirty business for male candidates’ wives, going all the way back to the country’s early days.
[. . .]
“It was terrible what these [earlier politicians] were doing to each other,” says Cormac O’Brien, author of “Secret Lives of the First Ladies.” “There was a tradition in politics for a long time of spreading half-truths and lies. People would be shocked by how bad it was.”
According to National First Ladies’ Library historian Carl Anthony, the first smear campaign aimed at a first lady came way back in 1808.
Federalist candidate Charles C. Pinckney “circulated the tale that the Democratic-Republican candidate James Madison had made wife Dolley Madison sexually available to the widowed incumbent President Thomas Jefferson for his endorsement, turning her into, well, a political whore,” Anthony wrote on his Web site.
[. . .]
Mary Todd Lincoln became a particularly polarizing figure due to her Southern roots. She was from slave-holding Kentucky, and her family fought for the Confederacy, leading those above the Mason-Dixon to question her loyalty and those below to call her a traitor.
[. . .]
Frances Cleveland, who married incumbent president Grover Cleveland in 1886, was the victim of rumors she was cheating on her husband after she appeared at the theater one night with a male escort. There were also whispers Grover beat her.
[. . .]
in 1896, opponents of William McKinley spread tales that there was something mentally off with his wife, Ida, and that she was insane and confined to an institution. In truth, she had epilepsy.
[. . .]
Considering our nation’s long, dirty political history, it’s no surprise that Cruz’s supporters and Trump consider wives fair game.
Of course, should Hillary Clinton win the election, First Hubby Bill is likely to get it worse than any first lady ever did.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/27/the-ugly-history-of-smearing-presidential-candidates-wives/

Smearing presidential candidates’ wives is totally normal
By Reed Tucker
New York Post
March 27, 2016 | 5:12am

James Madison And Founders Preferred Gridlocked Government

[From article]
You know who’s responsible for the gridlock? James Madison and the rest of the boys at the Constitutional Convention.
[. . .]



Obama has shown a marked absence of self-restraint when it comes to pursuing his political and social goals. He says over and over that the Constitution forbids him to grant amnesty on his own — he’s not an emperor, you know! Then he goes ahead and does it. He changes the health-care law all on his own. He goes around Congress to a friendlier body, namely the U.N. (Obama is a U.N. man if ever there was one.)
[. . .]



a president should not do things merely because he can. Andy Warhol said, “Art is what you can get away with.” Barack Obama’s philosophy seems to be, “The presidency is what you can get away with.”



http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421616/problem-presidential-ego-jay-nordlinger

The Problem of Presidential Ego
by JAY NORDLINGER

July 26, 2015 12:56 PM

@JAYNORDLINGER

James Madison On Immigration

[From article]
Step one was for city officials to proclaim that they would play no role in enforcing Federal immigration law. This was first done in 1979 by the city of Los Angeles through its illegal and unconstitutional Special Order 40.
Since immigration law is Federal, local officials have no authority to enforce or not enforce immigration law. In reality these statements were crafted to function as public relations initiatives, as efforts to reach out to those who would enter the area illegally. The large numbers of illegal immigrant juveniles being invited by President Obama into the U.S. today is the boldest expression of the seizure of Congress’ power to control immigration, and Obama’s move has its roots in Special Order 40.
[. . .]
The state of Illinois, City of Chicago, and Cook County have also proclaimed that the matricula consular I.D. card, issued by the Mexican Consulate and other Central and South American Consulates, is accepted in their jurisdictions as a valid form I.D. This also enables them to vote. Cities and states have no Federal authority to declare what form of I.D. a foreign national may carry in the U.S. Only the State Dept. and DHS have this authority.
[. . .]
Obama, for the first time in U.S. history, has used the power of the Executive branch of the Federal government to brazenly defy Congressional authority and control immigration through his own edicts. In fact, President Obama’s actions can only be described as hostile to existing Federal law and the U.S. Constitution. He has not only refused to allow the Justice Department to enforce Federal law, he obstructs efforts by states to enforce existing law, such as when Arizona passed SB1070 and he ordered the Justice Department. to stop them from enforcing U.S. Immigration law.

http://americanthinker.com/2014/06/james_madison_foresaw_illegal_immigration.html

June 13, 2014
James Madison Foresaw Illegal Immigration
By Michael Bargo, Jr.

James Madison, Constitution and Politics

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/books/chaos_theory_baguKBxtc2rpsNkp5YOkVL

Chaos theory
Politics is messy, government is mad — just as James Madison planned
By RICHARD BROOKHISER
New York Post
Last Updated: 4:42 AM, December 11, 2011