I MADE IT UP: Joe the Mud Man

By Carl D. Clarke, Jr.

As the presidential campaign enters its final two weeks, the mud has really begun to fly.  This is typical when a campaign is close.  I began to wonder, “Who comes up with this stuff?”  And, as a crack reporter, I decided to find out.
I called up both campaigns and asked the question directly: “Who on the campaign staff is responsible for all the veiled slurs, half-truths, and outright lies that your candidates are spewing about the other party?”  At first, there was a lot of hemming and hawing and I’ll-get-back-to-you. After hearing nothing for days, I got a cryptic message late at night on my answering machine. “Talk to Joe the Mud Man in Indianapolis,” was all it said. 
Well, it took a lot of phone calls and research, but I finally located Joe.  “Yeah, it’s me,” he readily admitted.  “I’m a consultant to both parties, what you might call an equal-opportunity mud man.  Neither campaign wants to have me actually on staff, so I free-lance.  During the presidential campaigns, I make pretty good money.  In the off years, I work the really tight Senate and House races.”
“Tell me about mud,” I said.
“You got to start with research. You look at his voting record and see how you can twist what might have been a perfectly reasonable vote on a prescription drug bill and make it look like he voted against seniors.  Then there’s the ‘blow it out of all proportion’ bit.  For instance, if Barack Obama spits off his back porch, you can claim that he is anti-environment.
“Then you got your innuendo,” said Joe.  “If a man protested with poor people, you claim he is a rabble rouser.  If he worked in a big law firm, he is a ‘tool of the moneyed interests.’  But you have to do your research. I pride myself on the quality of the mud I come up with. In fact, I think I’m the best in the business.”
“It just sounds sleazy to me,” I said.
“A little.  But there’s also humor in it.  I’m the guy that picked up on the fact that John McCain has five or six houses.  So when Barack is identifying with the average man sitting around the kitchen table, I gave him the line about “John McCain has to decide which kitchen table he’s going to sit around.”
“I understand you used to be a college professor.  That where you learned your research skills?”
Joe got a little more guarded.  “Where’d you hear that?”
“And that there was some flap about improper advances to a student…”
“Wait a minute.  That got blown all out of proportion.  The girl told a pack of lies just as I was up for tenure.  It was all innuendo and rumor and gossip and smear.  I had no choice but to resign.”
“Hmmm…” I said. 
“It doesn’t matter,” Joe said.  “I make more money than most professors being the Mud Man.  No security, but a lot more money.” 

Carl D. Clarke, Jr. from Abingdon is a weekly columnist for the Washington County News.  He may be reached at