The general election season has just begun, and although you may have thought the jabs candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have taken in recent weeks may be a little unkind, be assured, we haven't seen nothing yet.

Perhaps only two things are certain of the 2008 election. Number one, George Bush will no longer be president. Number two, there will be words.

Here's a brief compilation of some of my favorite confrontations among presidential candidates in the past couple of centuries.

5. Andrew Jackson's bad timing and the election of 1828

There's no doubt that Andrew Jackson's gaff in marrying a woman whose divorce had not yet been finalized would have caused a stir today. But I don't know whether newspapers would write some of the claims that gazettes of the day printed, such as "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and christian land?"

Jackson still went on to win, partly because of his 1824 contest against Adams went awry in that the former won the popular and electoral votes but lost the election. But also because Jackson supporters took it to Adams with equal vigor, claiming he had given up an American servant girl to the appetites of the Czar in Russia and that he had used public funds to buy gambling devices for his home.

The latter was true, if you consider that a chess set and pool table are gambling devices. I just have this image of the Deadwood casinos lined wall to wall with chess sets.

4. It's tough to attack the truth

In the 1884 U.S. presidential election, James Blaine supporters went personal against his opponent Grover Cleveland, highlighting the likely fact that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child in 1874.

Remarkably, even when there was a possibility that the child was not Cleveland's, he didn't dispute the claim. When his advisers and campaign staff asked how to handle the campaign nightmare, he simply told them he would tell the truth.

Blaine ran on the slogan "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?" But it was Cleveland who had the last laugh, winning the election and adding the responsive line to Blaine's slogan "Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!"

It's hard to believe with the blistering attention of the multifaceted forms of media available today that Cleveland would have been able to be victorious, but it would sure be nice if somebody tried it.

3. A potpourri of political nastiness

This entry on "A History of Political Mudslinging and Character Assassination" on the Flopping Aces blog is like a greatest hits of tough, likely unfair presidential political advertising, including some great political cartoons of the revered President Abraham Lincoln in less than flattering light.

My personal favorite against Lincoln though is listed in a Democratic newspaper that told voters Lincoln shouldn't be elected president because he only changed his sock once every 10 days.

Honest, Abe?

2. Ushering in an era of images

Tony Schwartz, the man who created the most controversial political ad of our time, died this past week at the age of 84. And while the man has left us, his legacy remains in the "Daisy" TV commercial he created for Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential run.

The ad was so controversial, it only aired once. But ads of the time weren't afraid to be confrontational. Here's a pair of ads that ran during LBJ's campaign against Barry Goldwater. While Schwartz's "Daisy" ad didn't even mention Goldwater, the latter ad was a stinging indictment of unsolicited endorsements.

1. A founding father, the deadlocked election of 1800 and a whole lot mud

Largely considered the muckiest of all presidential elections, the showdown between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in a deadlocked election with the incumbent John Adams in the midst brought out the absolute worst in American politics.

Federalist newspapers claimed that the election of Jefferson would cause "teachings of murder, robbery, rape, adultary, and incest."

The incumbent John Adams was painted as unstable, irrational and even a monarchist as Republicans claimed there was a plot to marry his son to one of King George's daughters.

Meanwhile, Jefferson, called the Federalists "a reign of witches" and that they were a party "adverse to liberty." And as the deadlocked election dragged out, there were state militias ready to go to war if Jefferson failed in his bid for the presidency.

It kind of makes today's presidential politics seem extremely tame.