Political Smear Campaign Quotes

The Democrats' obsession with the Kochs as a political target is, indeed, additional evidence of a truly Nixonian approach to politics.

I see it all the time in politics. If a candidate gets caught in a lie, he quickly tries to change the subject by throwing more mud at his opponent. The mud keeps flying until some of the slanderous material sticks.

When the wind is right, a faint odor of kerosene is exhaled from Senator McCarthy.

This is not politics. This is garbage. And we are disgusted by it. To those who are departed who sought in some, quote, clever, unquote way, to tarnish the reputation of Tom Foley, I say, good riddance.

These attacks prove one thing for certain: the liberal establishment is desperate to keep leaders like me out of office, and we are sure to hear more wild, dishonest smears during this campaign.

People have realised that for want of anything substantial, the Congress is using Rafale to question the government. But people are not responding or reacting positively to them. They've had enough of this muck-raking.

Look, in 1800 the sainted Thomas Jefferson arranged to hire a notorious slanderer named James Callender, who worked as a writer at a Republican newspaper in Richmond, Va. Read some of what he wrote about John Adams. This was a personal slander.

The Republican effort to make the September 11th attack on Benghazi into a scandal is really about one thing and one thing only: Hillary Clinton.

John McCain turned 72 years old last Friday, but the Chinese are making him a birth certificate that says he's only 33 and then he'll be ready to go.

One of the frustrations of the Republicans is that they have been mostly unsuccessful in equating the word Clinton with Mafia, which, to them, seems so head-smackingly obvious.

I trust in due time to lay the perfidy, meanness, and wickedness of [Henry] Clay naked before the American people. I have lately got an intimation of some of his secret movements, which, if I can reach with positive and responsible proof, I will wield to his political, and perhaps his actual, destruction.

Donald Trump first gained political prominence leading the charge for the so-called birthers. He promoted the racist lie that President Obama is not really an American citizen, part of a sustained effort to delegitimize America's first black president.

My parents, particularly my father, had been used by commentators, political journalists and political commentators, to attack me, and the collateral damage was the reputations of my father and my mother.

Smearing good people like Lauchlin Currie [former administrative assistant to President Roosevelt], Alger Hiss and others is, I think, unforgiveable... Anyone knowing Mr. Currie or Mr. Hiss, who are the two people whom I happen to know fairly well, would not need any denial on their part to know they are not Communists. Their records prove it.

Donald Trump believes now that Barack Obama was born in the United States. But that issue was raised originally by Hillary Clinton's campaign.

I was a partisan attack dog. There’s a lot of things that went down that I feel terrible about.

Politicians have done some grim things in pursuit of the office. President Franklin Roosevelt was a philanderer; nevertheless, he pushed aides to use his opponent Wendell Wilkie's affairs to hurt him. He even tutored aides on how to spread rumors without getting caught.

Ted Cruz has been playing an ad about me that is so ridiculously false, no basis in fact. Take ad down, Ted. Biggest liar in politics.

Unfortunately, my rivals are spreading all kinds of suspicions for political reasons that are absolutely not true. They've tried accusing me of agreeing to dismantle the army, of jeopardizing private property, of giving the pensions of policemen to the guerillas - all kinds of lies. What they want is for people to be afraid of peace.

I don’t think that you have to run down someone’s reputation in order to run for the Presidency.