Sen. Smith needed

Regarding the Oct. 6 BDN story, “Alaska governor defends linking Obama to terrorists”: It has been 58 years since McCarthyite tactics were first used in a national election campaign (the 1950 midterm elections). At that time Maine’s Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, appalled at the direction the campaign was taking with the tacit support of her party’s leadership, acted to preserve her honor, that of the Senate and that of Maine.

In her historic “Declaration of Conscience” she deplored those who resorted to “character assassination” and said she didn’t want to see the Republican Party ride to victory on the “Four Horsemen of Calumny – Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear.”

Dare we hope the cynics are wrong and that the old-fashioned virtue of honor has not been entirely driven out by frenetic sound-bite politics? Perhaps one of Sen. Smith’s successors can summon the degree of courage that it undoubtedly took in 1950 to put her obligation to decency and fair play above the “benefit” of polarizing the electorate and stoking cynicism.

A new “Declaration of Conscience” is very much needed.

Robert Rackmales

Northport