Timeline: The Best Government Money Can Buy

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http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/american-campaign-finance-scandal-history

1758 George Washington's successful campaign for the Virginia House of Burgesses spends £39 on booze to "treat" voters on Election Day ($8,130 in 2011 dollars).
1800 Thomas Jefferson hires a writer to smear President John Adams as "mentally deranged" and a "hideous hermaphroditical character." Propagandist is imprisoned under the Sedition Act; Jefferson wins the election.
1829

President Andrew Jackson advocates rewarding loyalists with political office. Sen. William Marcy later notes approvingly, "To the victor belong the the spoils of the enemy."





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