Suffolk Closeup: Waist deep in the Big Muddy

Election by character assassination? Or robust public vetting of candidates?

Growing old, as the saying goes, isn’t for sissies. And neither is running for office these days in Suffolk County or anywhere in the United States and being mercilessly attacked.

Years ago it was known as mudslinging. In recent times, terms also used have been “negative advertising” and “attack ads.” Whatever the name, it’s now become the nasty usual.

For example, “John Kennedy turned his seat in the county legislature into a money-making scam,” charged one mailer smearing the Republican candidate for Suffolk comptroller this year. This and many other pieces sent out on behalf of the Democratic candidate, Jim Gaughran, had to do with Mr. Kennedy, a Suffolk legislator, hiring his wife as an aide and how he “gave his wife a $50K pay raise, more than doubling her salary.” It screamed: “John Kennedy: Using YOUR tax dollars to fatten HIS wallet.”

In the end, Mr. Kennedy won anyway. He said on election night, “Experience and hard work cut through all the mudslinging and garbage of the other side.”

And in the campaign, he made an issue of the negative advertising. “Say NO to Mudslinging,” declared one of his mailers headed: “Children Play In Mud. Not Leaders.”

Another glaring example in Suffolk this year: the race for Congress between Democrat Tim Bishop and Republican Lee Zeldin. It was negative squared. “It’s bad enough that Congressman Tim Bishop was named one of the ‘Most Corrupt’ Members of Congress,” asserted one mailer attacking Mr. Bishop.

The heading of another, “Congressman Tim Bishop: Making Headlines For All The Wrong Reasons,” and went on: “Bishop was named one of the most CORRUPT members of Congress by an independent watchdog group. He was investigated by the FBI and U.S. Attorney for a political contribution shakedown scheme.

And Bishop paid his daughter hundreds of thousands of dollars from his campaign account.”

Meanwhile, there were the anti-Zeldin mailers such as the one headed, “Corporate polluters know how to get Lee Zeldin’s attention,” and stating: “Lee Zeldin took $17,000 from corporate polluters who dumped toxic waste in parks and at veterans’ homes.” It concluded: “Lee Zeldin: Dirty tricks. Dirtier money. On the side of corporate polluters.”

Another was headed “Lee Zeldin Has His Priorities Completely Backwards” and went on: “Lee Zeldin is like a reverse Robin Hood — he takes from students and middle class families who need it and spends it on himself.”

There was no escape from the attack ads in the Bishop-Zeldin race. Indeed, the New York Times ran a story — which it featured on page one — stating, “Commuters on the sea-hugging Montauk line of the Long Island Rail Road had a shared experience while browsing the Internet on their smartphones recently. A half-screen ad popped up attacking Timothy H. Bishop as ‘one of Congress’s most corrupt’ members.”

The Times article said the smart- phone ad was “part of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s efforts to catch up with Democrats’ sophisticated voter targeting” and this kind of campaigning chasing “voters at home and on the go” has become “an integral part of the modern ground game.”

Were the attack ads a factor in Mr. Zeldin defeating Mr. Bishop? Yes.

On a state level, there was the Rob Astorino TV commercial featuring the headline of a column in the New York Post: “Scandal exposes Cuomo as liar and phony.” And there was the torrent of ads on behalf of Democratic incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo describing his GOP rival as “not just wrong” but “DANGEROUSLY wrong.”

Talk about inescapable: We went up to Vermont a few week ago to look at the colorful leaves and, turning on the TV in the motel, there were nasty political spots involving candidates in New England with whom I was not familiar.

Election by character assassination has become common, de rigueur, widespread — the American way of politics. Deep in mud. Is this what we want our political campaign system to be based on?