(11-10-2020, 11:21 AM)The Real Marty Wrote:

(11-09-2020, 08:04 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: Yeah, we started losing civility with Clinton. Don't remember this before Bush Sr.

If you want to see a lack of civility, look up the Adams vs Jefferson Presidential campaign of 1800.  That one takes the cake.  

The Story

Things got ugly fast. Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." In return, Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father." As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was "one of the most detestable of mankind."

Aaaand things went downhill from there.