When a Plutocratic Dinner Doomed a Presidential Campaign

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Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Media debacles are a recurrentnightmare for presidential candidates. Yet few have everconfronted a more devastating publicity firestorm than theRepublican candidate James G. Blaine did on a fateful dayin October 1884.

Not even Mitt Romney -- who is now facing the blowbackfrom some arrogant remarks that he made in private at afundraiser with high-rolling supporters -- has had a dayquite as damaging as the one “the Plumed Knight” (asBlaine was known in the press) suffered in the final daysof his presidential campaign.