Jake Tapper and Conan try to put Donald Trump's madcap candidacy in historical context

Many people are saying that this is "the dirtiest election in history," Conan O'Brien told CNN's Jake Tapper, but "if you read up on American history, there were a lot of elections where some plenty sleazy things happened, going back to the Founding Fathers." Tapper agreed, bringing up Thomas Jefferson allies calling John Adams a hermaphrodite and John Quincy Adams allies going after Andrew Jackson's wife. Still, in the past, it has always been surrogates making the hits, Tapper added, "not John Quincy Adams tweeting: 'Your wife's a bigamist. Sad!'"

Now that Donald Trump and his rivals are personally comparing penis size and mocking each other's wives, "does it feel to you like we've hit a new low?" Conan asked. "Below the belt, as it were?" Tapper replied, getting a look from Conan. He didn't really answer that question but did list some of the ways the campaign is breaking new low ground. Still, Tapper said he has believed for months that Trump will win the GOP nomination, because the Republican Party has nothing left to stop him and Trump's fan base is very loyal. "He has this mesmerizing persuasion quality," Tapper said.

Conan admitted that he is actually excited about the idea of a contested GOP convention this summer, and Tapper agreed. The 2004 conventions were so boring, he said, that Ted Koppel pulled his TV crew and walked out. But boring can be good sometimes, as when the Secret Service scotched the push to allow guns inside this year's Republican Convention. If they hadn't, Tapper said, "I was planning on covering the Cleveland convention from Cincinnati." Watch the mixture of historical and contemporary politics below. Peter Weber

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