Some call the current presidential contest the “dirtiest campaign in history.” Yet, it is hardly either unique or original. Its DNA is that of traditional American politics – a blood sport. In fact, in many ways this year’s bonanza is kinder, gentler than earlier campaigns – some quite recent.

For example, Mr. Romney’s religion which, by his own affirmation, is fundamental to his character and philosophy, is not an issue. As recently as John Kennedy, religion was fair game. Kennedy’s Catholicism – a faith much better understood by Americans and far less secretive than Romney’s Mormonism – suffered vitriol and suspicion by the wagonload. Not so for Romney – his beliefs are apparently off the table.

The closest religion came this year to being an issue was Republican criticism of a Democratic Party platform in which the typical obeisance to God was omitted.

In the very first U.S. two-party election, Thomas Jefferson, who was the target of more conspiracy theories than even Karl Rove could invent, was alleged to have no God and that he would collect Bibles for burning. He was “mean-spirited, and ate abominable reptiles,” for which he had acquired a taste while in France. Also inaugurated in this contest was sex. Jefferson was accused of siring children by Sally Hemings, a young, attractive slave (and his wife’s half-sister). Several presidential campaigns later, Andrew Jackson was accused of bigamy. In return, his opponent, John Quincy Adams, was called a pimp – a procurer who had provided women to the Russian czar while a diplomat there (as if a Russian ruler needed help in that department!)

Grover Cleveland, who admitted a child out of wedlock, was forced to answer to the taunt “Ma, Ma, where’s my pa?” It was alleged that the son of his opponent, James G. Blaine – “the continental liar from the state of Maine” – had been conceived before Blaine and his wife were married. Vandals even chiseled the date of the child’s birth from his gravestone to make it look suspicious

For generations, race was a vital issue. Henry Clay and his running mate were attacked in verse. Today, with the election of Mr. Obama, the racial issue is muted, but is still very much alive – quite openly in the South and “dog whistles” in the north, signals recognizable only to those to whom race matters.

Nor is this election unique in its willingness to play politics with the loss of American lives. The Obama camp blamed Mitt Romney for the death of a woman who lost her health insurance when Bain Capital closed a Kansas City steel plant. Romney suggested that the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi might have been avoided if Obama had been on watch. But those charges are relatively mild.

In 1848, an image of Zachary Taylor sitting on a pile of human skulls was widespread. “The Bloody Deeds of Gen. Jackson” cartoon of six black coffins under his name called him a murderer of American militiamen during the War of 1812, because he had approved an execution order for six men convicted of desertion.

The original “birthers” – those who swim in an ocean of paranoia are far from new. Like other sickly aspects of human nature, they breed best in a stew of hate and fear, and first appeared in large numbers during the 19th century – the Know Nothing Party. Rather than Mexicans and Muslims, those pioneers of bias and ignorance feared Irish and Italians.

The use of deceptive ads by campaign organizations goes back at least as far as Jefferson and Adams and has changed little. However, with the ascendancy of TV as a campaign tool, attack ads have ballooned. In this election they appear to account for 70 percent of the total. In that sense, from an advertising perspective this election could well be the most negative in history.

Lucius Flatley approves this message.

Thought for the week:

A recent poll claimed that nearly 30 percent of the Republicans in the red states believed that Mr. Obama had nothing to do with the elimination of Osama bin Laden.

Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Westbrook. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.

Copy the Story Link