30 SECONDS: Bob Mann

Before he joined the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU, Bob Mann fought on political battlefields from the U.S. Senate to the Louisiana Legislature as press secretary to two Democratic senators and a governor.

We asked Mann for his thoughts on a letter circulated in July accusing Mayor Kip Holden of an extramarital affair.

Was this old-fashioned dirty politics or something new?

Some of our founding fathers—in particular, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton—were the subject of very nasty rumors and scurrilous charges, mostly carried in newspapers published by their enemies. In the case of Hamilton, he later admitted to an affair and allowed himself to be blackmailed by the woman’s husband.

What’s the real point of such an attack?

Beyond the obvious purpose of alleging sexual and other misconduct by a public official, I suspect that the unproven allegation about a sexual affair between a black man and a white woman is meant to stir up resentment and anger reminiscent of that among certain Southern white men of an earlier era who reacted violently to a perceived violation of the “sexual purity” of their women. Sadly, this kind of racism may not be a thing of the past. In 2006, a black candidate for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee may have lost because of a Republican-sponsored TV ad that suggested (falsely) a relationship with a white woman.

When are attacks like this effective?

Sometimes the most effective attacks … are the ones that build upon each previous attack. In other words, the attack pieces help establish a narrative about the intended target. Of course, it helps if there is some truth to the attacks, but unfortunately that is not always necessary.

The mayor took the offensive. Did he overreact?

I don’t think so. Something this poisonous must be attacked head-on and with fury. As John Kerry and Michael Dukakis learned to their everlasting regret, if a charge is not challenged, the public is likely to conclude that it’s true. In this case, however, the mayor may also have a legal case. Public officials usually have a hard time winning libel and defamation suits, but this one may be worth pursuing.

Who was the best at handling attacks like this?

Assuming you’re talking about a guilty politician, then, in a strange way, I’d say it’s Edwin Edwards. The public and the media will often punish a politician more for hypocrisy than for infidelity. Edwards never pretended to be a paragon of virtue.… My experience is most politicians think they can talk their way out of most anything.