Revelations about sexual activities have been considered potent political weapons since the dawn of the Republic. The now well-aired allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave, Sally Hemings, were apparently first introduced early in his first term as President by a disappointed office-seeker but had no discernible effect on his overwhelmingly successful bid for reelection in 1804. The absence of modern mass media and indifference to what men did with their slaves would have prevented the type of reaction predictable today.
The 19th Century
Andrew Jackson was the first to encounter a serious attempt to make an illicit sexual relationship part of a presidential campaign. Jackson led the popular vote but lost a four-way race in 1824 to John Quincy Adams, a contest that had to be decided amid much politicking in the House of Representatives. Almost immediately, supporters of Jackson began a nationwide campaign to make sure that "the people's choice" would not be denied again in 1828. Detecting the threat to the incumbent, backers of Adams began circulating a charge that Jackson and his wife had begun living together and then married before she had received a divorce from her first husband. The allegations were well circulated, but Jackson won handily this time. Tragically, his wife, fully aware of the charges, died shortly after his inauguration.
In 1884, New York Governor Grover Cleveland was bidding to end a streak of six consecutive Republican victories. Cleveland, a bachelor, was thought by many to be having an affair with a single woman. A rumor that he had fathered a child with her was seized upon by Republican supporters with the taunting phrase, "Ma, Ma, where's my pa." Many observers, in that age of higher public probity, expected the rumor to destroy Cleveland's chances, but he was saved by a remark by a Republican-backing Protestant clergyman that insulted enough Catholics to turn the election to Cleveland.
The 20th Century and Beyond
An extramarital dalliance of President Warren Harding's seemed to be common knowledge in the early 1920s, although it made it into print only after his death. Nan Britton, in a tell-all book, claimed to have been his paramour and mother of his illegitimate child but failed in a suit for support from his estate. Less known, but more interesting politically, is the account in a book by Francis Russell, "The Shadow of Blooming Grove," that Harding had an earlier affair with a married woman who was paid off and sent to Japan during his victorious 1920 campaign to avoid any harmful revelations.
Senator Gary Hart had a reasonable shot at the 1988 Democratic nomination until he was photographed in affectionate pose with an attractive woman not his wife in 1987. Arkansa Governor Bill Clinton finessed allegations of an affair well enough to win the nomination and election in 1992, but his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky got him impeached in 1998. He survived a Senate trial and has since had whatever satisfaction may come from the revelation that then-Representatives Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, and Mark Sanford, among his castigators, all had illicit affairs.
It would appear that sex-and-politics scandals have become considerably more lethal over the years.
References:
NNDB Tracking the Entire World:Rachel Jackson
