Electoral Dysfunction?

'Civility in public discourse is gone. The parties and candidates are at each others' throats. The nation's attention is riveted on an unending volley of insults and accusations."

Sound familiar? That was the lament in 1828 about the presidential race between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. The Adams campaign fliers, known as coffin bills, accused Jackson of being an adulterer and his mother of being a prostitute.