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As the Watergate scandal unfolded in 1973 and 1974, voters were mesmerized by the endless series of shenanigans encapsulated in the term "dirty tricks." False rumors were spread about initial Democratic frontrunner Senator Ed Muskie and his wife Jane, which undermined his legitimacy as candidate and led to ill-considered emotional confrontations and his eventual withdrawal. The office of the psychiatrist of war critic and ex- Defense Department consultant Daniel Ellsberg was burglarized to get negative information about Ellsberg. Most dramatically of all, the Watergate building office of Democratic National Committee Chair Lawrence O'Brien (then a former Postmaster General, later an NBA Basketball Commissioner) was burglarized in the hope of finding negative information about Democratic plans.

President Nixon ordered his aides to compile an " Enemies ListNixon's Enemies List is the informal name of what started as a list of the Nixon administration's major political opponents compiled by Charles Colson and sent in memorandum form to John Dean on September 9, 1971. The list was part of a campaign officiall" of his most prominent critics, so that the Internal Revenue Service and other governmental agencies could harass them. Nixon ordered that all his conversations be tapedMagnetic tape is an information storage medium consisting of a magnetisable coating on a thin plastic strip. Nearly all recording tape is of this type, whether used for video with a video cassette recorder, audio storage ( reel-to-reel tape, compact audio, so that he could have material for his memoirs and he could structure the record of history because he would be the only person in the room with knowledge of the taping. Ironically, the tapes led to Nixon's downfall, because they documented the long series of dirty tricks more than the greatness to which Nixon aspired.

The Watergate scandal turned out to be a boon to the Democratic Partylogo depicts a stylized donkey in red, white, and blue. The Democratic Party is one of the two major United States political parties. The Party is currently the minority in both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, as w. Democrats swept elections among swing voters from 1973 through 19761976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). Events January January 12 UN Security Council votes 11-1 to admit the Palestinian Liberation Organization January 15 Would-be Gerald Ford presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore is s, in large part due to the revulsion among Nixon "law and order" voters about the atmosphere of "dirty tricks" illegality within which the Nixon Administration acted. The Democrats may have taken false comfort from Watergate-inspired victories, however, as the 19761976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). Events January January 12 UN Security Council votes 11-1 to admit the Palestinian Liberation Organization January 15 Would-be Gerald Ford presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore is s election proved to be a high-water mark never again equaled for the Democratic Party nationally and in the vast majority of the states.

Nixon aide Donald SegrettiDonald H. Segretti (born September 17, 1941) was a political operative for the Committee to Re-elect the President ( Nixon) during the 1970s. Segretti ran a campaign of dirty tricks against the Democrats. His actions were part of the larger Watergate Scan, who coined the term, ultimately was one of the many Nixon aides convicted and imprisoned. Others included John EhrlichmanEhrlichman ( March 20, 1925 February 14, 1999) was a close advisor to President Richard Nixon and a key figure in the Watergate scandal. Ehrlichman won the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II. He graduated from Stanford University School of Law in, H. R. Haldeman, G. Gordon Liddy, and Chuck Colson. Colson "found God" in prison and went on to become a major religious leader for the cause of restorative justice.

Some see a return to the dirty tricks mentality in the harshly negative campaign tactics of the late Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. But Atwater systematically apologized to his victims before his death, and neither he nor Rove have ever been criminally charged. The dirty tricks of the Watergate era set a standard of illegality in political campaigns that has never been equaled on a national scale, although other negative campaigners may have been more vicious and certainly were more effective.