Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
To summarize:
By the time Nixon came along, dirty tricks were par for the course.
Both sides routinely spied on one another, tried to sabotage the others meetings and rallies, planted false information and rumors, and so on.
However, both sides were generally careful not to do anything too terribly illegal or unethical or personal because after the election was over, it was quite likely that both sides would have to work together a good bit in order to properly govern.
Now then, Nixon on the other hand, could be quite vindictive and did take things personally, therefore he did not try to restrain his campaign staff when they did do things that were illegal, unethical, or personal because he did not belive that such things were really all that wrong since they had always been done to him in the past.
Where Nixon and his high advisors and aides really got into trouble was when they were shown to be gross liars when they said that they did not know about the dirty tricks, or support the dirty tricks, or approve the dirty tricks, or fund the dirty tricks. In other words, it was not the dirty tricks that was the issue, it was all the lies they told to cover-up their involvement with the dirty tricks that were the issue.
I hope this helps!
