MCT "Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots and October Surprises in U.S. Presidential Campaigns" by Joseph Cummins.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
(MCT)

Think the mudslinging in the 2008 presidential election is getting nasty enough already, with allegations of everything from cocaine use to face-lifts? This stuff is tame compared to what's been slung in past American presidential elections.

More than 225 years of nastiness are compiled in "Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots, and October Surprises" by Joseph Cummins (Quirk, $16.95).

Look back unfondly at the golden election of 1876, where his opponents spread rumors that Rutherford B. Hayes had shot his own mother in a fit of rage.

In the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon, former president Harry Truman advised voters: "If you vote for Nixon, you might go to hell!"

And then there was the unkindest cut of all, hurled by Democrats at Republican Abraham Lincoln. According to a Dem newspaper, Lincoln should not be elected because he changed his socks only once every 10 days.

© 2008, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.