Let the mudslinging begin

In this episode, I look at one of the weirdest political fights in Florida history: the 1950 Senate race between Claude Pepper and George Smathers. Instead of just debating ideas, the campaign turned into a wild smear battle full of strange accusations and over-the-top insults. 

 Join me as I break down the drama, the rumors, and the ridiculous campaign tactics that made this race one of the most memorable in American political history. 

Transcript

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Behold, it's Mrs. Lowe with her podcast, Mrs. Lowe and Behold. Welcome, beholders. I'm so glad you could join me. It has definitely been a couple of minutes since I last recorded and uploaded a podcast. Thank you so much for your patience. We will begin with a funny story from class. As many of you know, you probably already know this story, but for those who don't know, we were looking at the Bush Gore 2000 presidential election. And I had written the names on the board. And one student raised his hand and said, Mrs. Lowe, what's AI Gore? And I thought for a minute and then I looked on the board, and it's Al. The I is an L. So it's Al Gore. But now my class refers to him, at least my second period class refers to him as AI Gore. So there's our funny story, like Al Gore or A.I. Gore. We're going to talk about some congressional members, but we're going to go back about 50 years from AI Gore's 2000 presidential election. What we're going to talk about is this amazing, wonderful story between Claude Pepper and George Smathers. Okay. The Democratic senatorial primary election in Florida took place in August of 1950, but an article published in Time magazine months earlier proved detrimental to the four-term incumbent running for reelection. Who was the incumbent? I'm so glad you asked that question. Claude Pepper. He was a political rock star in Florida. But with one stroke of the pen, Tom Magazine was able to wipe that away in the time it took to read one article. But before we get to that smear campaign and all the mudslinging that occurred, let's catch up with Senator Pepper and find out who he was. So he was born in 1900. Claude Pepper was like the forest gomp of his time. He lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, two visits by Haley's Comet. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine twice, met Orville Wright of the Wright brothers, worked with U.S. presidents from FDR all the way to George H.W. Bush, became friends with Winston Churchill and Bob Hope. His Senate career began in the mid-1930s when he won a special election to fill the seat of Duncan Fletcher. Duncan Fletcher had passed, and so the seat was open and Pepper was elected. Then Senator Pepper was re-elected in 1938 and 1944. In 1945, Pepper went to Russia to interview Joseph Stalin. In the interview, eventually published in the New York Times, he praised Stalin as one of the quote great men of history and the world. When he returned to Florida, the Fort Lauderdale News reported that Pepper continued to praise Stalin. Pepper laughed it off as inconsequential, saying, quote, my constituents are going to complain always when I don't devote my whole time to their petty personal matters. And now, y'all, I'm no politician, but I don't think you win elections by calling your constituents' personal matters petty. So this becomes a theme throughout Pepper's third term. He is outspoken on communism, he praises the Russian government, and he becomes isolated by those in his own party. He doesn't support President Truman's ideas, and then he does. And then he doesn't, and then he does. He becomes vilified in local Florida papers and in national publications like Time Magazine, the New York Mirror, and the Washington Times Herald. Now in the Herald, they decide to weave the were the word red, capital R, as in Red Army, Red Scare, into an article that says, quote, here's one that is good enough to tell without any buildup. On July the 7th, 1946, Claude Pepper, the red, capital R, hot senator from Florida, end quote. It just kind of goes on and talks about an incident, but they use this word red almost as like an insult, but also as like a gotcha. They want people to associate Pepper with communism, which was highly unpopular in the United States at this time. Newsweek published an unflattering article about Pepper and his politics. So all of these different media outlets, print, magazine, um, they are all sort of um printing these articles about Pepper and throwing in some jabs here and there. Now, maybe Pepper believed that old phrase that no press is bad press because he continued to attack American foreign policy and President Truman. The New York Mirror gave him the nickname, which is kind of funny, but red Pepper, and it stuck. So this brings us up to a speech that was supposedly given by Pepper's opponent, George Smithers. It was published in a Time magazine article just months before the primary, and it said, quote, are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law. He has a brother who is a known homo sapien. And he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy, end quote. Smathers denied ever giving the speech, ever going um, even going as far as offering a ten thousand dollar reward for anyone who could prove by passing a lie detector test and getting a second uh witness or ear witness, sorry, that the speech had been given, but no one ever did. However, the accusation stuck and Pepper lost handedly in the Democratic primary election. It ended up being about two to one. It wasn't until 1962 when Pepper re-entered the national politics by winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He worked tirelessly to defend Social Security and to support programs for the elderly. Smaters became good friends with John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. He retired, Smathers, in 1968 to become a lobbyist and a profitable businessman. By 1983, the two men had become cordial towards each other. Mathers died on January the 20th, 2007 in Florida at the age of 93. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Pepper died on May 26, 1989, in his sleep in Washington, D.C. from stomach cancer, just four days after he had received the presidential medal of honor from George H. W. Bush. His body lay in state for two days in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, making him the 26th American to do so, and the last American to have an open casket in the rotunda. He's buried in Tallahassee, Florida. Once I finished with the research, I thought, what do we learn? How can I make this relevant to my students and to all the things we've been talking about from propaganda and the different types of propaganda that are found in media and campaign ads and the different ads that we viewed last week in our um follow the money activity. And here are three takeaways that I think are relevant. Number one, I don't want to jump on that quote unquote media is the worst bandwagon. What I think we've talked about in class and how this story is relevant is that it's key for everyone to use their critical thinking skills when viewing media. The second thing is that mudslinging as strategies and name-calling, they are nothing new. As we've talked about with Jefferson and Adams during their election of 1800, these things are nothing new and they're going to continue. And the best thing that we can do is recognize them and search using our critical thinking skills for the truth. And then the third thing is this is a great study for how these smear campaigns can alter political careers and really take on a life of their own. So my last question is for you. What's your takeaway from this story? Let me know in the comments, or you can tell me the next time you see me at school. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time. Bye.