Rich Hall's Presidential Grudge Match

This programme contains some strong language

When I was a kid, my mom said,

"Work hard, you can become president,"

cos I grew up in a Disney film.

That was back when we believed

that presidents were righteous and honourable,

cos, after all, they were president.

And that died in about 1974 with Richard Nixon, Watergate,

blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah-blah-blah.

"But, Rich, can anybody be president?"

Well, that depends on your circumstances.

If you find yourself standing outside of a Walmart bathroom

at three in the morning,

waiting on the results of your girlfriend's pregnancy test,

no, you're not going to be president.

"But I've watched every episode of West Wing.

"I want to change the world."

Screw you. Go start a soup kitchen.

Being president is a hard job,

and you really, really have to want it.

When you're president, you've got thousands of bosses.

Half of them demand stuff way outside your job description.

The other half wouldn't mind too terribly if you were dead.

So you need Disney-sized motivation,

the kind of motivation that craves abuse.

And here's the kicker.

There's a pretty good chance the job is going to kill you.

Of the 43 men who've been president,

four have been assassinated, all by gunshots.

Another 13 presidents have been shot at,

had grenades thrown at them,

car bombs planted,

or someone tried to crash their plane.

And for every president who's been killed on the job,

there's another one where the job killed them.

Franklin Roosevelt

and Warren G Harding keeled over from heart attacks.

Zachary Taylor ate some bad cherries

during a Fourth of July celebration at Washington Monument,

died of severe diarrhoea.

William Henry Harrison caught pneumonia

right after his inauguration.

Doctors treated him with leeches and Virginia snakeroot.

He died after being president for only 32 days.

Still want the job? Fine.

Just make sure that you're rich, a white Protestant male

and a Freemason.

Or ugly, born in a log cabin and clinically depressed.

Because one thing is for certain -

if being POTUS doesn't kill you, it's going to prematurely age you.

Just look at Obama.

When he came into office, he was a good-looking, vibrant man.

Now look at him.

Face like a used tyre.

So, according to the odds,

there's roughly a 40% chance that, as president,

somebody's going to try to assassinate you.

But there is a 100% chance of character assassination.

# People, won't you come together?

# We've all got to live as one

# I ain't right sure what that means

# But don't you reckon it sounds like fun?

# Everybody pack your picnic lunch

# And everybody pack your gun

# Cos we...

# Can't trust no-one

# No, you...

# Can't trust no-one. #

I'm really excited.

How many people here are ready to turn the White House red again?

CHEERING

How many people here

are ready to go out there and tell Hillary Clinton

what difference it really makes?

What difference does it make?

APPLAUSE

I'm here at the Presidential Town Hall, and these Bush supporters

are feeling very good about their candidate.

What do you say, guys?

An election is a thing that happens every four years in America,

where we get to watch a lot of ego-obsessed men and women

say crazy things, trip over mic cables,

insult each other, and generally engage in a series of antics

that makes us briefly forget we live in a world of destructive policies

and a state of grim hopelessness created by these very fucksticks.

Donald Trump likes to sue people.

He should sue whoever did that to his face.

Given that being president of the United States

could very likely put you in a premature grave,

it's fairly astonishing that at the beginning of 2016,

23 hopeful Americans threw their hat in the ring

for the nation's top job.

At some point, every one of these candidates has looked in the mirror

and said to themselves, "You know what this country needs?

"Me."

That's the kind of haploid, diploid,

megalomaniacal level of self-delusion you need

to run for president.

CHEERING

When I'm president, we're getting rid of Obamacare.

They all talk about passion, service,

wanting to do it for their country.

Of course there's a huge amount of ego involved in all of this.

I turned out to be 100% right on illegal immigration.

People, two weeks ago, they were going after me, even the reporters.

You're talking about a group of men -

and so far, they've all been men -

who have been basically convinced from birth

that they were the centre of the universe.

Most of the people running for president

actually believe that they have a talent,

a philosophy, an ideology, an ability to lead people,

really an extraordinary gift.

And if they don't, we generally find out really quickly.

And where do we find out?

On the campaign trail.

When I'm president, you will not get in to the United States of America.

It's going to get tough.

You're going to be on the road for two years.

You're going to spend up to 1 billion.

You're going to expend a whole lot of shoe leather,

and you're going to have to make some bold statements.

A total and complete shutdown

of Muslims entering the United States.

You're going to get attacked.

Your past and your family are going to come under intense scrutiny,

and God help you if you've got any dirty laundry.

I am confident that I never sent nor received

any information that was classified at the time it was sent...

If you're going to be POTUS, President of the United States,

you're going to have to fight dirty,

because it's the most downright gruelling election on the planet.

There's nothing easy about running for president, I can tell you.

It's tough, it's nasty, it's mean, it's vicious.

It's beautiful.

LAUGHTER

And you know what? It's all been done before.

Ten, nine, eight, seven,

six, five,

four, three,

two, one,

zero.

These are the stakes.

The 1964 presidential campaign

between Lyndon Johnson and his challenger, Barry Goldwater,

introduced a vicious new tactic into presidential campaigning.

Quotemanship.

The idea of taking what a candidate says and turning it against him.

Johnson created a series of TV ads

that portrayed Goldwater as some kind of deranged whack job

who, if elected, would destroy all of mankind.

We must either love each other...

..or we must die.

Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd.

'Mr Johnson set out on a political career 27 years ago.

'A road that led to the White House.'

By the time of the 1964 election,

Johnson had already been in the White House for a year,

having stepped in after the assassination of John F Kennedy.

He was seen as the likeable heir apparent, but...

with a hidden agenda.

He knows he's going to win,

but what he wants is a huge landslide victory,

cos remember how insecure Lyndon Johnson was.

He was following the most popular president maybe to this day,

and he didn't just want to win.

He really wanted to win by a lot, because to him,

that meant that the American people loved him

and that, therefore, he could move forward

out from beneath the shadow cast by the JFK presidency.

'Since Labor Day, Senator Goldwater has travelled

'tens of thousands of miles to discuss the issues of the campaign.'

Goldwater made the agenda easy for Johnson.

His slogan was, "In your heart, you know he's right!"

And he was. Extreme right.

Now, Goldwater was an accomplished senator

and ex-air-force pilot, very close friend of the late JFK,

but he didn't care much for Russia or China

or any other commie red bastard,

and he didn't bother trying to soft-soap it.

And we must make clear...

that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced,

and its relations with all nations tempered,

communism and the governments it now controls

are enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free.

CHEERING

In terms of articulation,

let's compare that to a modern-day candidate

with a whole team of speechwriters and researchers at his disposal.

Hey, I'm not saying they're stupid.

I like China.

I sell apartment for... I just sold an apartment for 15 million...

to somebody from China.

Am I supposed to dislike them?

Goldwater had all the oratorical tools - alliteration,

assonance, litotes,

pleonasms, exclamations,

epigrams, classical quotes -

way more than the average American could absorb.

When he accepted the Republican nomination in San Francisco in 1964,

he pretty much dropped the Trumpism of his day.

I would remind you

that extremism...

in the defence of liberty is no vice.

CHEERING

Hard-core Republicans lapped this up.

Finally, a guy not willing to kowtow to the reds.

The more moderate Republicans, however, were genuinely flummoxed.

Future President Richard Nixon had to turn and explain to his buddy

what Goldwater had just said,

like someone who didn't quite get a Frankie Boyle joke.

Never mind that he was quitting Cicero,

the man who pretty much laid the foundation for practical democracy.

Nope, his opponents took the word "extremism"

and milked it for all it was worth.

And in no time at all,

they had him starring in a one-man version of Mississippi Burning.

"We represent the majority of the people in Alabama

"who hate niggerism, Catholicism, Judaism

"and all the isms of the whole world."

So said Robert Creel of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. He also said...

"I like Barry Goldwater. He needs our help."

Unlike the stentorian Goldwater, Johnson was a folksy down-home Texan

who used the Oval Office to further Kennedy's agenda

of progressive social reform,

eradicate poverty, promote civil rights,

and order lots of slacks.

'Joe, is your father the one that makes clothes?'

-'Yes, sir. We're all together.'

-'Uh-huh.

'Y'all made me some real lightweight slacks.

'Now, I need about six pairs

'for around in the evening when I come in from work.

'The pockets, when you sit down in a chair,

'the knife and your money comes out,

'so I need it at least another inch in the pockets.

'Now, another thing - the crotch down where your nuts hang

'is always a little too tight, so when you make them up,

'give me an inch that I can let out there,

'because they cut me.

'It's just like riding a wire fence.'

Why, this knife-wielding, pecker-cramped good old boy

was determined to spend another four years in the White House,

and nothing was going to get in his way.

Goldwater never had a chance, systematically bombarded by TV ads

that all implied every child in America was doomed.

Do you know what people finally did?

They got together and signed a nuclear test ban treaty.

But now there's a man who wants to be president of the United States

and if he's elected, they might start testing all over again.

The best that Goldwater could do to counter this assertion

was to drag out the Duke himself, old John Wayne,

to provide some kind of weird cryptic voice-over

that, frankly, made no sense whatsoever.

An umbrella - just that,

or the symbol for appeasement?

A table - just that,

or a sell-out abroad?

A wall - just that,

unless it helps you remember

what has happened to a billion people in this world

and what can happen to you and to your children.

What in the wide, wide world of sports was he talking about?

What, there was a wall somewhere with a billion people behind it?

The '64 campaign had turned into something that resembled

a bitter divorced couple fighting over custody of their kids.

'To many, of course, he is the president first

'and a candidate second,

'but his speeches draw a resounding cheer.'

Lyndon Johnson decided to really turn Barry Goldwater

into someone who terrified and horrified Americans,

and he did it in a number of different ways.

They wrote...

It sounds trivial, but they wrote hundreds of letters

to the advice columnists of the time,

Dear Abby and Ann Landers,

claiming to be Americans who were terrified at the thought

of a Goldwater presidency.

They even put out a colouring book for little children

which portrayed Goldwater in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan,

and then they followed up with, of course, the daisy commercial,

which was probably the most effective campaign commercial

in history.

Johnson won by a landslide.

His campaign had convinced Americans

that if Goldwater was elected, he would start a war,

and now, firmly re-entrenched in office,

what do you think Johnson did?

He went to war.

This administration today, here and now,

declares unconditional war on poverty in America.

That's all the joint military chiefs of staff needed to hear.

War. Mm! Good God, y'all.

In March of 1965, two months after being sworn in,

Johnson ordered 20,000 troops

to launch an offensive against Poverty,

a small nation on the Indochina Peninsula of Southeast Asia.

Within 18 months,

this incursion had increased to 200,000 troops,

all trying to keep North Poverty from overrunning South Poverty.

By 1967, there were more than a half-million men fighting Poverty,

and Johnson's support plummeted

to the point where he was the most unpopular president in modern times.

The man who had got himself elected

on a premise of saving America's children

was unfortunately watching America's teenagers

come home in body bags.

Let's imagine for a second an alternative historical scenario.

What if Goldwater had won?

Let's say that LBJ pulls out of the race

due to aggravated scrotal trauma.

He chooses, instead,

Hubert H Humphrey, his vice president.

Now, Hubert Humphrey is an avuncular hack from Minnesota

who's been pining for the job since the end of World War II.

Nobody takes him seriously, so Goldwater wins.

CHEERING

Goldwater doesn't mess around in Vietnam - he ends that war

in two weeks flat, and the world knows, don't mess with the USA.

Unfortunately, his refusal to deal with Arab nations

and their oil exports leads to a gas shortage.

With a gas shortage, the auto industry stagnates.

With no cars, America just becomes this place

with a lot of vintage automobiles,

really cool-looking but held together with duct tape,

also known as Havana chrome, and the auto industry does not progress,

thus we never get the nimble Ford Bronco,

in which OJ Simpson leads the LAPD on a high-speed chase.

That chase would have been on foot

and OJ would've easily outrun the cops,

cos let's face it - he was one of the fastest runners in the NFL.

No OJ, no trial.

No trial, no Robert Kardashian,

who rose to prominence defending OJ on the murder rap.

Robert Kardashian just would've been a two-bit ambulance-chasing

chiseller from Los Angeles and his three daughters would be vapid,

inconsequential bimbos, hanging out at the mall.

It's a tragic fact that politics in America

is coming closer to resembling a reality TV show.

We want to see our candidates lined up in front of

a panel of judges, like Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly,

whose sole purpose is to create confrontation and drama

for the TV audience.

Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments

about women's looks.

You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be

a pretty picture to see her on her knees.

Does that sound to you like the temperament of

a man we should elect as president?

Even Obama seems to be confused

about how he's supposed to exude presidentialness.

Being president is a serious job.

It's not...

hosting a talk show or a reality show.

No, it's not.

So, here's Obama talking politics with Bear Grylls,

a guy who likes to drink his own urine.

-Would you ever encourage your girls to get into politics?

-No.

-Really?

-But if they

came to me and they said they wanted to go into elected office...

-Yeah.

-..I would be completely supportive.

-Yeah.

Because I think it can be noble work,

if done for the right reasons, the right way.

But if any of these presidential wannabes were put into

a reality show, they'd be evicted before the first commercial

for being soulless, snooze-inducing, robotic dullards.

Some of America's greatest journalists have tried to

chronicle elections, and every one of them would have been better off

following plankton for a year.

Boys On The Bus, Timothy Crouse.

Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball? Yeah.

Even the estimable Hunter S Thompson, who chronicled

the 1972 campaign between Nixon and McGovern,

was so overcome by torpor and ennui

that he just resorted to making stuff up about the candidates,

just to enliven things -

claiming, for example, that Democratic nominee Edmund Muskie

had hired a Brazilian witch doctor to supply him with ibogaine.

That's a hallucinogen that makes you think you're a salamander.

Open season on voters gets under way

as the presidential candidates start cross-country vote-hunting tours.

MUSIC: Ramblin' Man by The Allman Brothers Band

What Americans want is to be wooed

by old-fashioned grassroots campaigning,

which means crossing the country by bus and plane,

eating pancakes and talking to

a lot of lumpy housewives at shopping malls.

The campaigning itself is a pretty good test of the candidate.

If they manage to get through that without flopping dead

on the floor or turning into a bodacious drunk, you know...

I mean, I sure couldn't.

Just the sheer wear and tear on these people tells us that

they're pretty sturdy physical specimens.

No-one who hasn't been there has any conception

of how unbelievably gruelling it is.

It's gruelling and exhausting.

Remember, you've been campaigning - what? -

by the time you hit September, for 16 months.

Jumping into a plane in the morning and making four or five speeches

in different parts of the country,

which aren't that different from the ones you made the day before,

is not the most, er, wonderful experience, in that sense.

I want to thank the musical organisations that have been here.

I understand we have the Leon High School band

-and the Godby High School band.

-CHEERING

President Truman continues his swing around the circuit,

meeting former vice president Garner at Uvalde, Texas.

Campaigning for president is more than a full-time job.

I mean, just raising the money is a full-time job,

not to mention going out and actually glad-handing people,

which is maybe two full-time jobs.

I really don't know how they survive doing it, cos it is -

it's just brutal. Especially this year.

I mean, this is a gruelling field.

People have lasted much longer than anyone expected.

Super PACS have played a role in keeping candidates going.

The next leader of the free world is going to have to tell us,

right up front...

are you going for the Broncos or for the Patriots?

LAUGHTER

And I'm here to announce...

This guy just paid off his student loan!

He looks like the kind of guy that should be explaining you

your warranty when you buy a large appliance.

After seven years of Barack Obama, this is a time of urgency.

You start to hear the same things over and over again,

said in a new way, with new reactions from the audience.

Jeb Bush - decent governor, I suppose, of Florida.

Which is like being a manager of a Dignitas clinic.

But let's face it - every family needs a Fredo,

just clinging to some blind familial destiny.

Hey, Dad.

Hey, W. How you doing?

I've learned a lot, being a candidate here,

and I look forward...

They try to be as everyman as possible, but they're slowly

losing their identity, turning into nattering nabobs,

shills, ciphers, husks.

You know, they're too busy flitting from rally to rally,

town hall to town hall, dinner to dinner,

trying to get people to like 'em.

It's like an Academy Awards nominations

if all the nominees were from the same film.

I believe America can be greater than it's ever been.

How we can keep America safer and stronger and freer...

When our embassy is purposefully attacked by terrorists...

They peddle bromides they think American voters can respond to -

things like, "Let's take America back."

"Let's make America strong again."

Basically, anything that can fit onto a bumper sticker.

And they desperately avoid the real issues.

And the reason a candidate avoids the real issues is because,

basically, both sides - Democrats and Republicans -

they're on the same page.

Yeah, they quibble over social welfare, but they both agree -

needs to be fixed.

They quibble over a few-billion-dollar difference

in defence spending but they both agree we need an army

that can kick the world's butt.

They argue over the free market but they both want the Government

to keep their big, meaty paws off of it.

The only difference is that Democrats stay above the waist

and Republicans, for some ungodly reason,

are obsessed with what Americans do with their fundament.

Abortion, Planned Parenthood, gay rights.

Republicans cannot stay out of a woman's jinkety-jankety.

Other than that, there's no difference.

Republicans, Democrats - it's the difference between hair and fur.

-Could I have a Coke, please?

-I'm sorry, we only have Pepsi.

Whatever.

Everybody wants the same thing.

Everybody wants economic growth, first and foremost.

Everybody wants a balanced budget, a secure international scene,

but we just have these two broad tendencies

with a lot of Venn-diagram overlap.

At times like now, when the parties seem to be very polarised,

that Venn diagram is only overlapping by about 50%.

Normally it overlaps by about 80%.

-In terms of what they...

-Of what...

-What they want to achieve?

-Exactly.

I am running for the presidency of the United States

because, citizens, it is time.

It is time that we take our future back...

So how do these people get themselves to stand above the fray?

They build a team, a human shield made entirely of yes men.

They've surrounded themselves with people who keep them

sheltered from the real world and give them

a courtesy reach-around hand job and keep them on a steady,

high-octane diet of Powerade until they turn into rutting,

savage-eyed alpha males crashing through the woods

looking for anything with a hole in it to fuck.

But I mean that in the nicest way possible.

And to get to the point where you have zillions of advisers

telling you what to do and what not to do and how to do it,

you don't know which is telling you the truth, you're surrounded

by ambitious people, you're raising money hand over fist...

..it's not a lot of fun.

# The prodigal son

# Left home by himself

# Home by himself

# Oh, the prodigal son left home by himself

# Prodigal son left home by himself

# That's the way for me to get along... #

People running for president uniformly believe

they can change the world. So the idea is to win at all costs.

After all, if you lose,

you're not going to be able to do anything, are you?

Winning an election is about deflecting as much as shit

as the other guy can throw at you.

If he claims that you fuck pigs, he's desperate.

But if he puts you in a position of having to deny that you fuck pigs,

YOU'RE desperate.

It's 1988.

After years of a B-movie Republican gunslinger running things,

a lot of Americans are ready for a change.

We're going to build the kind of America where hard work is rewarded,

where American goods and American workmanship

are the best in the world. That's what this election is all about.

A Democratic governor from Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis,

was primed to challenge

the incumbent vice president, George HW Bush.

I seek the presidency to build a better America.

It's that simple and that big.

I thought he was a serious candidate.

This was clearly going to be a competitive race.

I thought it was quite winnable.

And if I hadn't made a couple of really bad mistakes,

I think I could have won it.

By working together to create opportunity and a good life...

Dukakis was determined to take a fresh approach to campaigning

and avoid the mudslinging and the negativity

of so many previous elections.

'I hadn't engaged in any of that stuff

'during the primary, quite deliberately,'

and I thought people were fed up of that stuff.

But the lesson to be learned from '88 is that if the other guy's

coming at you, you've got to have a carefully thought-out strategy.

For a new era of new economic greatness in America,

Michael Dukakis for president.

Bush, on the other hand, was an old-guard politician.

He'd been around a long time and he knew all the angles.

And his opening gambit was to play the old crime-and-punishment card.

As governor, Michael Dukakis vetoed

mandatory sentences for drug dealers.

He vetoed the death penalty.

The Republicans seized upon a parole programme

in the state of Massachusetts where Dukakis was governor,

which allowed violent criminals to be released not so much on parole

but to be released on work furloughs for a few weeks.

William Horton escaped from the furlough programme.

He attacked a man and his girlfriend

and he raped the young woman and he stabbed the man.

Republicans seized upon this as a way to attack Dukakis

as soft on crime.

His revolving-door prison policy gave weekend furloughs

to first-degree murderers not eligible for parole.

While out, many committed other crimes like kidnapping and rape,

and many are still at large.

Now Michael Dukakis says he wants to do for America

what he's done for Massachusetts.

America can't afford that risk.

Never mind that those weren't convicts.

Those were members of George Bush Senior's campaign staff,

rented strangers, told not to shave for the day

and make a video that basically says,

"Elect Dukakis, and your kids will be kidnapped and raped."

Yep, that happened, and we let it happen.

Smears, cheap shots, dirty tricks

are part and parcel of American elections.

They're the currency of American elections.

Ronald Reagan himself had a furlough programme.

This governor of California had defended the programme,

even though two of his furloughees went out and murdered people.

But I said, "Not going to do it."

It was a big mistake. It's a big mistake.

And it was very likely this strategy of not fighting,

of not slinging back mud, that cost Dukakis the race.

See, mudslinging serves two important functions.

Number one, how a candidate responds to it is a microcosm of

how they would handle duress if, in fact, they were president.

Let's face it - no sane candidate is ever going to say anything bad

about himself, so you have to take them out of

their "I'm a nice guy" safety zone

and see what they'll do when the gloves come off.

For the next 90 minutes, we will be questioning the candidates...

It was during a televised debate on PBS that moderator Bernard Shaw

delivered the fatal blow, while 67 million Americans watched.

There are no restrictions on the questions that my colleagues

and I can ask this evening.

He went onto a stage

with millions of people watching

and he knew damn well,

he did something he didn't often do.

He made a mistake.

The first question goes to Governor Dukakis.

You have two minutes to respond.

We had rehearsed, time and again, that question.

That's the question where people want to know, whose side are you on?

Are you on the side of the criminal

or are you on the side of the victim?

And we had practised the answer endlessly in debate prep.

I mean, I can do it for you right now.

It begins with, "I know what it's like to be the victim of crime."

Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered...

..would you favour an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?

I really viewed this as being a kind of routine question

and, unfortunately, I think I kind of answered it

as if I had been asked it a thousand times.

No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that

I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life.

I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent and I think there are

better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime.

We've done so in my own state...

When Bernard Shaw asked him the question,

"Would you support the death penalty if your wife,

"Kitty Dukakis, was raped and murdered?"

and he responded in a very robotic, stilted,

falling back on his talking points fashion,

and Americans wanted him to shout out,

"How dare you ask me such a personal question?"

So, Dukakis was doomed -

viewed as a shell, a man with no emotion toward his own wife.

And his opponent made sure there was no coming back from this mistake.

Here I do have, on this particular question,

a big difference with my opponent.

You see, I do believe that some crimes are so heinous, so brutal...

I walk all the way backstage

and I'm the first person to get to Michael

and he looked at me and he said, "I'm sorry."

"I just missed it."

Of course I regret about that, I would have been delighted to be

-President of the United States.

-HE LAUGHS

I mean, how many people get to be president, for heaven's sake?

No, I'd have loved the opportunity, but I didn't get it,

didn't win it, so...one does other things.

Let's imagine for a second an alternative historical scenario.

What if Dukakis, instead of answering robotically,

had actually said to Bernard Shaw, "I'm sorry, Bernard,

"did you just ask me, 'what if my wife was raped'?

"How about we step outside and I punch your lights out?"

Then he would have been a national hero, easily beating George HW Bush.

No George HW Bush,

no George Bush Jr 12 years later to follow in his footsteps.

George Bush Jr would still have been owner of the Texas Rangers

baseball team, which he would have run into the ground, so now

Texas fans switch their allegiance to the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA.

The Mavericks have a huge payroll and are able to hold on to

both Kris Humphries and Lamar Odom,

instead of trading them to the LA Clippers,

where they promptly go off and marry Kardashians,

thus perpetuating the tawdry freak-show nature of reality TV.

The Kardashians would just be three inconsequential,

vapid bimbos hanging out at the mall.

So, you're probably thinking, the Founding Fathers,

those who created democracy in America,

were upstanding and dignified men with waistcoats

and really florid signatures,

who would never stoop to cut-throat politics.

Wrong.

This is the Constitution of the United States. 4,543 words...

that explain how the government works.

This is an owners' manual for a 2014 Toyota Tundra pick-up truck.

The people who wrote the Constitution

had no idea if it was going to work.

All they knew was there had to be a better way to elect a leader.

Because up to this point, historically,

there were only two ways to acquire power.

One, you overran people with invading hordes. Very messy.

Or two, you had to find a way to successfully

be born into a royal family.

The Founding Fathers figured there had to be something in between.

So they came up with this idea of a trilateral structure -

executive, judicial, legislative - where everybody could make sure

that everybody else wasn't getting too uppity.

They already had the perfect choice for president - George Washington.

A philosopher king straight out of Plato's Republic.

A man who, other than not knowing how stupid it was to stand up

in a crowded boat, was articulate, humble, and the nation's hero.

So after drafting this template for democracy, the Founding Fathers

immediately did the most undemocratic thing possible.

They anointed Washington president, unelected and unopposed.

Washington didn't like the office.

And didn't approve of the existence of the office, in a way.

Nobody really knew, nobody had done this before.

Actually, they didn't even use the terms president

or vice president at first. There was a lot of back and forth

about what to actually call their leader.

OK, here's a little game I like to play.

Which of these were actually suggested titles

for America's leader, and which are famous racehorses?

Pencils ready.

Elective Majesty.

Phar Lap.

Bold Ruler.

His Serene Highness.

War Admiral.

His Rotundity.

Superfluous Excellency.

Seabiscuit.

Answers later.

Within his first four years,

Washington exposed a huge flaw in the Constitution,

something the Founding Fathers and all their idealistic vision

had never foreseen, which was that as soon as you're in charge,

somebody, somewhere is going to decide you're doing it all wrong.

The Founding Fathers never envisaged the two-party system.

Today, we understand the two-party system

as essential for the functioning of democracy.

They didn't really foresee that

there are differences in self-interest - they thought

people would put these aside and unite for the good of the country.

Almost immediately, two of the main architects of the Constitution

started sniping at each other -

Thomas Jefferson, the first Secretary of State,

and Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury.

Jefferson was a plantation owner, Republic-minded.

In other words, sympathetic to farmers and planters.

He felt government should interfere as little as possible

in people's lives. And by people, of course, I mean white folks.

It's become fashionable in the last decade or so

to bad-mouth Jefferson and question whether

he deserves that great big photobomb up on Mount Rushmore.

Because, you know, he owned slaves.

Yeah, he did.

So did the first five presidents.

So you want to blame the driver, or the guy who handed him the keys?

That would be you, Britain.

Jefferson once called slavery a great stain on the nation.

Now, as a duplicity of the times, you could call slavery a stain,

and then you could have the slaves remove the stain.

And as for any disparaging remarks about Sally Hemmings,

Jefferson's slave mistress,

bear in mind that Jefferson's wife died at the age of 33

and on her deathbed, Jefferson promised he would never marry again.

So what can you do? You're the president and you can't get laid?

You have to file that under,

"Lamentable, but what choice do you have?"

Kind of like programming on ITV on a Sunday night.

Hamilton had an altogether different worldview than Jefferson.

He was what you would call a federalist.

He believed in big government,

and that if a big government didn't get its act together

and start making some do-re-mi, shore up a federal bank and print

a unified currency, then America was going to go down the dumper fast.

He admired the English financial system,

he admired the banking system, especially in England,

and he wanted to replicate those for America.

Because of their polarised views on how the country should be run,

Jefferson and Hamilton's animosity towards each other escalated.

Jefferson and Hamilton used newspapers very unethically.

Both of them were members of Washington's cabinet,

yet both of them took government money and funded newspapers,

the point of which was to express opinions for their side.

They would plant articles in newspapers,

often writing under pseudonyms.

In a 1776 issue of Hamilton's paper,

he, under the name Phocion,

talked about the "pretensions of Thomas Jefferson

"to the presidency", the nation must "be on The Guard".

He was "a demagogue", he wore the, quote, "garb of patriotism,

"but only as a disguise."

According to Jefferson, writing in his own paper,

Hamilton's ideas were "stupid, suspicious and licentious",

and they would just go back and forth, back and forth.

In essence, Hamilton and Jefferson's differences

derived from the ambiguity of the Constitution,

because the thing about the Constitution is,

it's purposively vague.

That's why we've spent 230 years arguing over what it means.

For example, when it comes to describing the president's

actual duties, this is what it says.

"The president shall take care that the laws of the United States

"are duly and faithfully executed."

"Take care." That's it?!

The label on my shirt tells me how to take care

in four different languages.

But the Constitution just says, "Hey, you know, watch out."

You can imagine that opened itself up to a lot of interpretation.

Basically, Hamilton and Jefferson disagreed on how much power

the president should have, because Hamilton was a pragmatist,

and Jefferson was an ideologue.

Hamilton knew he could get way more done

by being a behind-the-scenes guy,

which is what he did for the next four presidencies.

He was the facilitator, the go-to guy.

He's on the 10 bill because he started the Federal Reserve Bank.

He moved the capital from Philadelphia to Washington DC

because he believed it should be in a neutral place.

By the 1800 election between Thomas Jefferson

and the watery-faced John Quincy Adams,

the two-party system was firmly entrenched.

And now things got really nasty -

in the most gentlemanly way possible, of course, through print.

Part of us, as Americans, have a Mr Smith Goes To Washington movie

in the back of our minds. Some shining city on a hill,

back in that idealised past, where people were good to each other

and the Founding Fathers would never play dirty tricks on each other.

Well, of course, that's ridiculous,

because even if you go back to the election of 1800,

where Thomas Jefferson hires a writer to call John Adams, quote,

"a hideous hermaphrodite", unquote,

and the Federalist John Adams attacked Thomas Jefferson

as being "soft on the French Revolution",

just as Michael Dukakis was soft on crime.

And that election included my favourite campaign trick,

where the Federalists spread the rumour

that Thomas Jefferson was dead.

Which I think is wonderful!

Because, really, in those days, how do you rebut that very quickly?

Well, you can't vote for him, you know, he's dead!

So, you think the modern-day media

is a cesspool of slime and misinformation?

Look back to the good old days when you could just

pay a journalist to accuse your opponent of being insane

or a sexual deviant or an atheist. Just took a little money.

Jefferson won the 1800 election,

became the third president of America.

As for Hamilton... Well, he was never going to be able to

run for president because he was born in the Caribbean.

He continued his career as a great facilitator,

then ended up being killed in a duel with a guy named Aaron Burr.

GUNSHOT

Today, his achievements have been commemorated

in a Broadway musical, soon to transfer to the West End.

Hamilton, the musical!

# It's time to take a shot Time to take a shot

-# I am not throwing away my shot

-Just you wait

-# I am not throwing away my shot

-Just you wait

-# I am Alexander Hamilton

-Hamilton

# Just you wait

# I am not throwing away my shot! #

So there you go - one of America's most influential Founding Fathers

is now a hip-hop musical.

Because nothing inspires wicked beats

like an 18th-century Federalist.

See if I can't find one of these all-instrumental rap stations.

Bet it goes something like this.

HEAVY BEAT

# Alexander Hamilton was the bomb

# Born in the West Indies and orphaned from his mom

# Where he witnessed first-hand the degradation of slavery

# And was promoted by George Washington for his bravery

# He founded the bank of the Federal Reserve,

# But Tho.Jeff got on his nerve

# Tho.Jeff, he said, the economy needs to be saved

# But he, Jefferson, was too busy banging his slave

# To listen

# And that is the paradox of the two-party system

# Because Alexander Hamilton ain't bullshit. #

Boo-yah!

I do this shot all day, man. Give me any politician, I'll rap him.

I'll rap a politician.

-'Trump!'

-Trump?

# Donald Trump's mom was born in Stornoway

# At a very early age

# All the hair on Donald's head had worn away

# If you elect him president, beware

# How can a man control a country

# When he can't even control his hair? #

HE LAUGHS

So, the 1800s arrived and we get a steady succession of presidents.

Some forgettable, some will eventually

have a three-day mattress sale named after them.

And in 18w5, you get John Quincy Adams, the first true dud.

The only son of a former president

who ended up being a worse president than his dad.

That's right, John Quincy Adams purposively underperformed

in the White House to ensure that future sons of presidents

would learn from his mistake and never attempt to repeat it.

And how did these early POTUS-es, POTI,

engage with the public?

They didn't. Not remotely.

No, they stayed holed up in DC amongst their peers

just pontificating and extemporising and writing lots of doctrines.

A doctrine, by the way, is a word that the more you say it,

the stupider it starts to sound.

Smaller than a writ, but bigger than a pamphlet.

But none of these guys would be caught dead fraternising with

the average guy from Main Street, USA. Why would you?

Imagine how much more you can get done if you don't have to

deal with those pesky citizens and all their rights and demands.

# Come on, baby Let the good times roll... #

The candidate who more or less

invented campaigning as we know it today was Andrew Jackson.

He realised that to win the election of 1828,

he was going to have to work the crowd,

meet the public, kiss some babies.

He began to do something that no milk-tit gilded-cage candidate

had done before. He stumped.

What is stumping? Just what it implies.

Get yourself a stump, arm yourself

with a few all-encompassing phrases,

crowd-pleasers like, "This is the best potato salad I've ever tasted.

"Can I count on your vote in November?"

And then get to stumping.

Fellow Americans,

thank you very much for inviting me to your wonderful state

here in the heartland of America, but also very near the coast.

I realise I am probably standing on sacred Indian burial ground

and I will fulfil my promise to remove those bodies

and relocate them, so we can put an all-important manicure parlour here,

and that means jobs, jobs, jobs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Andrew Jackson's campaign depended on the persuasive power of personality.

Until Jackson, politics in America was an institution.

He turned it into a happening, and here's why. The man was a badass.

How much of a badass?

All right, let's take all 43 presidents,

put them into a steel cage,

no-one comes out alive - battle royal.

You have to honour and defend the Constitution.

No Apache helicopters allowed. Who wins?

The smart money would be on ex-soldiers,

like Rutherford B Hayes,

who took five bullets, making him the 50 Cent of presidents,

but does that make him a tough guy

or just someone who survived a bad shot?

Eisenhower had guts - he beat the Nazis.

But by the White House years, those guts were inflamed

and falling out from gastroenteritis.

Put a 20 on Andrew Jackson and while you're at it,

put Andrew Jackson on a 20.

# We fired our guns and the British came a-comin'... #

He killed Indians.

He whomped the British in New Orleans,

kicked the Seminoles back to Florida and as a duellist,

once plugged a guy named Charles Dickinson.

By the time he decided to run for Prez,

his temper and passion were legendary

and he kicked the crap out of anybody who called his wife a ho,

which many people did.

In September of 1827, having made up his mind

he was going to be president, bar nothing, Jackson started

organising "Friends of Jackson" rallies throughout the country.

His supporters nicknamed him "Old Hickory".

They called themselves "hurrah boys", wrote songs,

printed pamphlets, planted hickory trees,

passed out hickory brooms, hickory sticks, hickory canes -

the man literally won an election through a concerted arboreal effort.

They ripped his opponent, the incumbent John Quincy Adams, to shreds.

The Adams camp responded by pointing out that Jackson couldn't

even spell the word "Europe", which sadly was true.

On voting day, they showed up in droves

and elected Jackson by sizeable margin.

Jackson took office in March 1829.

Massive crowds lined the streets of Washington to celebrate.

Eventually, they surged into the White House, wiped their feet on the rug, smashed the furniture,

cleared out the liquor cabinet, started punching each other.

On his first night in office, Jackson slipped out the back door,

went and found a room at a local inn.

Now that he had won the first presidential popularity contest,

Jackson invented a new party -

the Democratic Republicans, nowadays called Democrats.

Almost immediately after his inauguration,

Jackson's wife got fed up with being called every name in the book, and died.

So now Jackson is even angrier.

As soon as he's cleaned up all the broken furniture in the White House,

he set about trying to destroy the careers of all the people who

had opposed him.

And fighting the Federal Reserve Bank,

because Jackson hated paper money.

He was a backwoods guy, believed in gold and silver.

Spent eight years fighting the Federal Reserve because

he believed that bankers were supreme sleazeballs.

And then when he dies, they put his face on a 20 bill -

quite possibly the biggest posthumous fuck-you a president has ever received.

Also as a footnote, he was the first president to ever be shot at.

He was leaving a funeral at the age of 67,

and some twisted geek took two shots at him, missed both times.

Jackson proudly responded by beating the living snot out of him

with his hickory came. They don't make 'em like that any more!

In spite of his contrariness, or possibly because of it,

Jackson was assailed by the media of the time, mercilessly lampooned.

You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.

Because he courted public acceptance,

he had to accept public derision.

Thomas Nast was the most famous of a new breed of journalists,

who didn't use words as much as he used pictures.

He was a political cartoonist with captions.

See, back then, a political cartoon served a purpose.

A lot of Americans were pig-illiterate but they could

look at a cartoon and glean a lot of information.

Nast was so skilful at lampooning that just one of his illustrations

could destroy a politician's career.

But nowadays I think we can all agree that the ability to draw

big ears and bulbous features on a politician

doesn't pack the punch it used to.

Astoundingly, today there are still over 200 political cartoonists in America.

200 people who have to wake up every day, think of the lamest premise

possible, sketch it, rethink it,

re-sketch it, colour it in, deliver it to the editor

so that we can look at it in the paper and do this.

Seriously.

Have you ever overheard anyone say, "Hey,

"did you see that political cartoon in the paper today?

"God, David Cameron had a head like a condom!"

Ha! Woo!

Seriously. You're a political cartoonist, do yourself a favour.

Go down to Leicester Square, get yourself a stall,

surround yourself by pictures of dead rock stars

like Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison and make a living hoodwinking tourists

by drawing their giant engorged heads onto little tiny bodies.

You'd be better off.

Hack!

By the middle of the 1800s,

Americans were finally involved in the election of their president.

Andrew Jackson had changed voting forever.

From now on, if you wanted to be president, you had to bid for the vote of the masses.

And that of course meant spin, spin, spin.

Media spin. You think that's a modern phenomenon?

William Henry Harrison, born into a wealthy family,

father was Governor of Virginia,

he was educated at Hampton Sydney College.

He was 5'8" of pure unadulterated toffee.

In the election of 1840, Harrison and his party, the Whigs,

took an offhanded comment by a Baltimore newspaper that said,

"Harrison looks like someone that if you..."

His party supporters picked up on that hard cider and log cabin reference

and gave it the full spin.

# Look at me

# You know what you see?

# You see a bad mother... #

All of a sudden, a guy who owned a 200 acre farm with slaves

was transformed into a hard drinking, big stinking backwoods philosopher.

The Whig party organised rallies for Harrison that could only be measured in terms of acreage.

The parades were 10 miles long.

What hickory had done for Jackson, log cabins did for Harrison.

Harrison won the election over Martin Van Buren,

and then because he had to keep up

this outdoorsman persona,

he delivered his inaugural speech in his shirt sleeves...

in January...

in the snow...for two hours.

And then he went off and died.

His greatest contribution as president was to the lexicon -

a distiller started selling William Henry Harrison commemorative whiskey bottles

in the shape of a log cabin.

That man's name was EC Booz.

And so the parade of presidents rolls on,

each campaign more vigorous than the one before. Newspapers come and go.

By the early 20th century, thanks to the airwaves,

everyone knows what a president sounds like.

'You people must have faith.

'You must not be stampeded by rumours or guesses. Let us unite...'

In Beaver, Idaho, 1927, a man named Philo Farnsworth

pottering around in his garage, invents something called

the image dissector and modern television is born.

Now, inevitably, thanks to television,

anyone running for president comes under a new kind of scrutiny

in living black and white.

In 1946, 8,000 Americans owned televisions,

and by 1948 that number had swollen to 350,000.

That was the year of the Dewey-Truman election

and for the first time, Americans got to see their candidates on the box.

So both the Democrats and the Republicans chose to hold their nominating conventions

on the East Coast, to take advantage of the time zone.

In Philadelphia, Harry Truman went to the podium to accept the

Democratic party nomination.

Now Truman was an incumbent president

but his victory was nowhere assured,

nor was it a good sign when a lot of pre-celebratory pigeons were released,

freaked out, started crapping on the conventioneers like something out of a Hitchcock movie.

In fact the Republican candidate,

Thomas E Dewey was so assured of stealing the presidency,

that his adviser told him, "Just don't say anything stupid and you're in."

Every poll and newscast seemed to support this.

'We now know that Governor Dewey will carry New York State by

'at least 50,000 votes and that he will be the next president

'of the United States!'

CHEERING

And November 2nd, 1948, Harry Truman went to bed a loser...

and woke up in the morning president.

So radio and this newfangled TV coverage managed to convince

many Republican voters that Dewey was a sure thing

so they didn't even bother to turn out and vote.

Truman squeaked back in by slightly more than two million votes.

November 3rd, 1948 marks the one and only time in history

that a newspaper got something wrong.

Television has established itself as new and vital tool in future

election campaigns, but it won't be long before the novelty wears off.

When did television campaigning get ugly?

Certainly not at the beginning.

In 1952, about the only slanderous thing that Democratic frontrunner

Adlai Stevenson could say against his opponent,

General Dwight David Eisenhower,

was that Eisenhower appeared to have grown to a height of 8'6".

General, I'd like to get married

but we couldn't live on the salary I get after taxes.

Well, the Democrats are sinking deeper into a bottomless sea of debt

and demanding more taxes to keep their confused heads above water.

Stevenson supporters fought back teeth and nail with

a series of devastating show tunes.

# I'd rather have a man who knows what to do

# When he gets to be the Prez

# I love the gov, the governor of Illinois... #

Unlike the governor of Illinois, Eisenhower had

no real political experience.

He was, by his own admission, a lifelong professional soldier,

he'd been dragged into the race on a tide of national hero worship.

-NEWSREEL:

-He returned home and his own people took him to their hearts.

Stevenson was an egghead, the thinking fellow's candidate,

and thus hopelessly unsuited for the presidency.

In fact he was quoted as saying,

"I have no ambition to be president,

"I have no desire for the office, mentally, temperamentally or physically,"

and then promised to shoot himself if he were nominated.

The Democrats nominated him anyway.

Both candidates were what you would call nice guys - who needs that?

Hey, if nice guys were electable,

Adam Hills would be a president somewhere.

Turns out TV wants to see the dark underbelly,

the savage heart, the snake in the woodpile.

Fortunately in 1952, such a snake reared its head.

My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight

as a candidate for the vice-presidency.

And as a man whose honesty and integrity has been questioned.

For Nixon, exposure on television was both beneficial and deceptive.

'We are looking for those moments where you see the real person.'

When you look at that person, do you trust them,

do you feel like they keep it real or do you feel like,

"Hmm? I don't really know what this person believes."

Just because you tell us you think something or you feel something,

are we inspired by you, do we know what you believe?

I want to say this to the television audience.

I've made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life...

Nixon verbally had lots of what we call deceptive hotspots in my world,

but then he had the body language hotspots.

You see Nixon holding on to the lectern.

We tell people what we are, not what we're not.

Nixon said, "I am not a crook."

..people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.

Well, I'm not a crook.

And he's, like, "And I welcome these questions."

And he steps back from the podium and crosses his arms.

And he is, like, robotic.

I've earned everything I've got.

We lean towards people and things and ideas that we like.

And we lean away from people and ideas and confrontation that we don't like.

I've earned everything I've got.

You feel it. You're like, "This guy's fake,

"he's phoney, he's lying about something."

But can't you also just see they're coached?

Yeah, of course, Hillary Clinton comes out like this,

like she's the Christ, we call this the Christ pose,

like she's on the cross.

And then she does the A-OK at the end of her hands,

so she stands out, she's like, "Hello, everybody,"

like, "I'm your saviour, I'm here to save you."

If you want a president who will listen to you,

work HER heart out, to make your life better...

CHEERING

..and together, to build a stronger, fairer, better country...

Al Gore, one time, he was debating against George W Bush,

they were both seen as presidential,

both seen as likeable going into the debate. What happened,

Al Gore speaks, it's George W's turn, he speaks,

Al Gore stands up, walks over to George W.

It's not only what's your philosophy and your position on issues,

but can you get things done?

And, like, stands over him.

It was so disrespectful, like, intimidating him.

And George Bush looks over at Gore, like, "How are you doing?"

But can you get things done?

LAUGHTER

And I believe I can.

It made George Bush look likeable, even more likeable,

in control, and not going to be pushed around easily.

So we have an incredible country.

For people like me, Donald Trump being in the race is fun.

Because he's showing up real.

We don't have victories any more.

You feel like the guy that stands up on that stand is the same guy

that's going to talk to you at dinner.

And if he thinks you're an asshole, he's going to say - "Dude."

And that all you got to go on?

That's it.

# Sometimes I'm right and I can be wrong

# My own beliefs are in my song... #

Nowadays, candidates live in a world somewhere between

character assessment and character assassination.

JFK was likeable, Nixon was shifty, so JFK won.

People look at you on TV, they make up their mind in a heartbeat

deciding if you have that likeability factor.

And by likeability, I mean, is there remotely anything

about these wazoos that you the voters can relate to?

So for a long while, telegenics, TVQ, as they like to call it,

went a long way in determining who would be the next president because

viewers could look at a candidate's debating skills, his speeches,

his actions, and determine for themselves who was the most

decisive, who was the most presidential.

And the single most important factor in choosing a president,

who is the guy you would most like to sit down and have a beer with?

It's the most difficult personal hurdle

that a POTUS contender can overcome.

So who is the guy you would most want to have a beer with?

OK, forget any of the Mount Rushmore guys,

cos that's like drinking with a celebrity, right?

You just want to get a selfie taken.

CUSTOMERS SHOUT

Andrew Jackson, mean drunk, Bill Clinton, sure,

if you don't mind being a wingman

while he sneaks off with some waitress to take care of business in the back of a Camaro.

Nope. The guy you want to drink with is Harding. Warren Gamaliel Harding.

Harding would have been the perfect drinking buddy.

He played baseball and golf, played poker like a maniac -

once won an entire newspaper company in a card game.

Even when he was president, kept flitting back off to Ohio to

sit on the porch and polish off cocktails with his small-town pals.

And this was during Prohibition.

Boy, did the man have stories.

And I don't mean, "I'm kind of a big deal in the White House" stories.

I'm talking about STORIES.

You know, multiple terms in the Oval Office, if you get my drift.

Warren G Harding, affectionately known as Warren G Hard-on,

made Bill Clinton look like the guy at the prom with acne.

Slept with his wife's best friend, slept with his best friend's wife,

his own wife, Flo - Flo...

was some kind of hectoring ballbuster

who travelled with her coterie of acolytes,

and advisers and once tried to put a seance chair

in the White House living room.

Isn't that the best kind of drinking buddy -

the guy and his personal stories are so horrific that they make

you feel better about your own pathetic life? Damn right it is.

Warren G Harding is your man.

So let's go order up a couple more pitchers of beer and plates of ribs

and check out the rack on that waitress.

# I'm a man, yes, I am and I can't help but love you so

# No, no, no

# But I'm a man, yes, I am and I can't help but love you so

# Yes, I am

# No, no, no, be it so, baby? #

Back to the question. At what point did modern campaigning get ugly?

I mean, really, really ugly?

1972.

The sitting president, Richard Nixon,

set out to destroy the Democratic primary by pitting its four

main candidates - Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern,

Scoop Jackson and Edmund Muskie, against each other.

Cut-throat.

-# Whoo!

-Who can take a sunrise?

-Who can take a sunrise? #

Nixon had already spent four years in the White House doing

a perfunctory job of running things.

No-one could quite get a beat on his character. He just seemed shady.

They didn't nickname him "Tricky Dick" for nothing.

Of course, while Nixon was respected by Americans for being strong

and tough, nobody really loved him. And he was not exactly

a warm figure that gave off sort of popular vibes.

So Nixon had to worry about his re-election.

Just remember, we cannot fulfil the American dream unless each

American has a chance to fulfil his own dream.

That's what we believe in.

Nixon was leaving nothing to chance.

So first of all, he infiltrated the Democratic primaries,

so he would get the opponent he knew he could destroy.

They were doing all kinds of sabotaging events,

giving false information, trying in every way to weaken the

candidates that Nixon most feared as potential opponents.

Donald Segretti, one of Nixon's campaign workers,

wrote a letter on stationery belonging to Democratic nominee

Edmund Muskie - the letter was meant to cause chaos,

accusing Humphrey and Scoop Jackson of sexual and alcoholic misconduct.

Some years later, Segretti would eventually admit they were lies.

Each and every allegation in the letter was untrue

and without any basis in fact.

It was not my desire to have anyone believe the letter, but instead,

it was intended to create confusion among the various candidates.

But in 1972, Nixon's plan had worked.

The Democrats basically started cannibalising each other

and McGovern moved to the forefront of Democratic contenders.

He wanted to run against George McGovern, he thought George McGovern was the most vulnerable

potential opponent, the person he could most easily defeat.

-NEWSREEL:

-Seldom in American history have presidential candidates held

such sharply opposing views on major issues.

McGovern wants to end the Vietnam War immediately.

Nixon's re-election committee had more money than they knew

what to do with, and used it to paint McGovern as a fuzzy socialist.

FACTORY WHISTLE BLOWS

Senator George McGovern recently submitted a welfare bill

to the Congress.

According to an analysis by the Senate finance committee,

the McGovern bill would make 47% of the people in the

United States eligible for welfare.

Nixon had a systematic campaign to relentlessly tag McGovern as

a radical and an extremist.

Tying McGovern to the Yippies - Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin -

even one anonymous piece trying to connect him to Charles Manson.

And who's going to pay for this?

Well, if you're not the one out of two people on welfare - you do.

The McGovern camp responded by pointing out

a tiny infraction by the Nixon campaign organisation, that

they had broken into the Democratic campaign headquarters at Watergate.

This is about credibility. This is about electronics.

This is about bugging. This is about spying.

Nixon stressed that McGovern would wreck the military.

The McGovern defence plan. He would cut the Marines by one third...

..the Air Force by one third.

Meanwhile, McGovern could not emphasise enough...

This is about deception. This is about the White House.

And this is how you stop it.

With your vote.

Watergate. Watergate.

No, no, I'm still here.

I'm still here, the director has forced me

into this lead pipe obvious joke,

that some people broke into Watergate in 1972.

Watergate, break-in. Hey, everybody...

# Who can take a rainbow... #

Despite McGovern's efforts, Nixon was still the favourite for the election.

He shifted his presidency into turbo-drive - he visited China.

He made deals with Russia.

He got tougher on Vietnam while at the same time brokering

a peace resolution, all within a few months,

which just goes to show you how much a president can get done when