Rope-A-Dope 101

In any pitched political firefight there are some dirty tricks that have to be done by proxy. They require operatives with the stomach to fight dirty, the type of folks who are untroubled by conscience. One of the classic tricks is the 'rope-a-dope', which works as follows:

Let's say you are a friendly to the campaign of Candidate A. You really want to see this guy win (for the purposes of example, we are going with a male). First you must insinuate the most outlandish, horrible things imaginable about candidate B that can be conceived. Don't hold yourself back. Candidate B is corrupt! Candidate B is only out for the financial betterment of his friends! Even better -- candidate B eats helpless babies! Shout it from the rooftops. But this must be done without the knowledge of candidate A or his staff. Plausible deniability is important. Keep up the accusations until the media begins buzzing. Keep it up, relentlessly. When the "official" spokespeople of your candidate (candidate A) appear to distance themselves - don't worry about it. Keep going until candidate B responds in frustration by claiming that, no, he does not eat babies, and furthermore, candidate A should say something to quash these kinds of stupid accusations.


Congratulations! You've roped the dope. By being the first one to acknowledge this fringe attack, candidate B has come across as thin-skinned and without seriousness, and more importantly, he's been taken off message. Candidate A reaps the political spoils of this exercise, and has the option of remaining silent, or piously (but quietly) disavowing the slanderous attack, or slyly suggesting that candidate B seems a little (cough) overexcited.

Sound familiar? Bush "affiliates" did this to Kerry. They were the Swift Boaters. When asked, Bush said nice things about John Kerry's service, but these were drowned out by the seething outrage of Kerry and his flacks, where were knocked off their pins with their response - which was too late, and defensive.

Locally, we've got our own game going in Nate Livingston's attack on mayoral candidate David Pepper. Officially, of course, Livingston isn't supporting rival Mark Mallory - wink, wink. He just wants to "get the word out" about Pepper. And for all we know there really is no official connection between Mallory and Livingston's defamatory website. All we do know for sure is that Nate has already chalked up an oversensitive reaction by David Pepper and an article in the Enquirer, and promises even more outlandish accusations in the future. The obligatory Hitler comparison has already been made, so the mind boggles at where he will go next.

The shame here is that everyone is eventually brought a little lower by these shenanigans, even Mark Mallory, who is otherwise an extremely adept politician with natural leadership skills. Asking Mallory to "denounce" the viciousness (as some have done) would only prolong this juvenile debate and encourage the rabble-rousers. Thankfully this will end in another month, when those few people who haven't been thoroughly disgusted show up at the polls to vote.