Definition
A method of persuasion in which damaging rumors or innuendo are deliberately spread concerning a person or other target, while the source of the rumors tries to avoid detection.
In Context
- "Senator Harding will not authorize his headquarters to take public notice of the “whispering campaign.” There has been a difference of opinion among his advisers as to whether to ignore the slanders or to produce evidence disproving them."
- "Both publicly and in a particularly unscrupulous whisper campaign the Liberals tried to change the aspect from one of folly to one of personal corruption and some of this got through to the voters."
- "McCain—who was famously burned in South Carolina in 2000 after his New Hampshire victory, when a whisper campaign and George Bush's dominance of the state's Republican party structure combined to deliver a crushing blow—was openly nervous."