Voting in Mayberry

Recently I have felt my television programming was inundated with negative political commercials. “Do any nice folks run for political office?” Does political office only attract thieves and crooks whose election will destroy our state or our nation?

Now, I know negative campaigning has been with us at least since the Election of 1800 when Thomas Jefferson sent men into the taverns to spread rumors of what a lecherous scallywag John Adams was. I‚m not making that up, Jefferson really did that and taverns were the “televisions of the times”. Adams soon responded.

Adams was called a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal and a war mongering tyrant. He was just stubborn and cantankerous. Boundaries reassured him. He reached inward toward Puritan New England.

Jefferson was called a weakling, an atheist and a libertine. Jefferson was said to be “a mean-spirited fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” He was just imaginative and inventive. Boundaries perplexed him. He reached outward to the allure of the American West.

The key difference was Jefferson hired James Callendar to do his dirty work for him. Adams considered that tactic as beneath him. Callendar convinced voters that Adams wanted to attack France – Jefferson won the election. Callendar went to prison for slander.

When and why did we lose the kind of slander laws that put Mr. Callendar away? Oh, really! Seriously! The law changed so politicians couldn‚t be held accountable for their lies. Well, what about the rest of us? Really! You mean like Alex Jones got got?

Let me think. Andy Taylor was the sheriff of Mayberry. He was sheriff and apparently the city law enforcement as well. Sheriff is an elective office in North Carolina, so Andy must have run for office.

How could anyone say anything bad about Sheriff Taylor?

Nepotism. He hired his cousin, Barney Fife, to be Deputy Sheriff and even gave him a bullet to keep in his shirt pocket. And that kid of his, Dopey, Opie, always seems to be hanging around that office. That is no place for a kid.

Religious zealot. His Aunt Bee is always doing some church bake sale. Andy wanders in and acts surprised that they have cupcakes at a church bake sale. A guy this nice must be hiding something.

Soft on Crime. Anyone can see he panders to drunks and simpletons. He tells Otis to sleep it off and lock up on his way out. Gomer of the gas station is often deputized. And there is no telling what crimes Ernest T. Bass has committed. Committed yet never convicted. And Floyd‚s barber shop must be laundering money.

Perhaps Mayberry is how we want our nation to be while the Presidential Election of 1800 reflects the origins of what we have allowed our nation to become. I do believe our better angels exist. I wish we found them more often.

Life is an adventure. Dare it. – Mother Teresa

Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin‚, published each week.