Did Republicans fight this much over a primary in 2000 or 1996?

[LoZoccolo]

I didn't really pay much attention to them at all (or really even the Democratic primaries in 2000), so I really don't know. Has any of them had to try to walk a line (or not tried to walk a line) between winning and messing up the general election? Or been accused of it?

Before we proceed, please don't turn this into a debate about the Democratic candidates. I don't want to set any rules like, you can't compare anything a Democrat is doing now to something some Republican back then or what not, just please use judgement, and please don't turn it into that by accusing someone else of doing it.

[southerngirlwriter]

1. I think so.

I heard many, many, many vicious arguments among my freeper family and neighbors when Pat Buchanan made a good showing (was that '92 or '96? I don't remember).

[RamboLiberal]

2. Rove pulled some nasty tricks on McCain in S. Carolina

after McCain surprised the lazy chimp by beating his ass in NH. If I remember right they started nasty phone bank calling. Suggested McCain's adopted child was black, had nasty rumors about his wife and drug addiction and that McCain's captivity as a POW had made him mentally unstable.

McCain sometimes is a burr in Bush's saddle, but I could never figure why after SC McCain didn't expose the chimp every chance he got.

[southerngirlwriter]

4. It was worse than that.

Senator McCain was a POW for five and a half YEARS in Vietnam. They push-polled and said that he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was given special treatment by the Viet Cong because of it.

Yeah. Special treatment. Like, one broken leg instead of two with no medical treatment or painkillers??

What SCUM they are!! ARRRGGGHHH!!!

[election_2004]

3. Yes - Dole/Buchanan, Bush/McCain

The infighting was just as bad. It simply appears as though 2004 is worse because there are so many Democrats in the field.

[jsw_81]

5. Yes

In 2000, many Republicans were outraged that the party elite basically annointed Bush as the nominee, and as a result they had a pretty nasty pre-primary battle in which many conservatives brought up the fact that Bush had gone AWOL and abused cocaine. Then once the primaries started there was an incredibly bitter battle between Bush and McCain, a battle in which the Bushies spread rumors that McCain had fathered a child with a prostitute and been brainwashed in his POW camp by the North Vietnamese (among other things).

The primaries weren't as nasty in 1996, but the party almost erupted into chaos after Pat Buchanan narrowly beat establishment candidate Bob Dole in New Hampshire.

But our side has a long history of nasty primary battles too. After losing the nomination to Carter in 1980, Ted Kennedy didn't even want to shake the president's hand at the convention.

[Momof1]

6. Plus McCain was for breast cancer... eom