Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail

Reading a 500+ page book is not the easiest way to stay on pace for the 50 book challenge, but part of the challenge is to read the books you would normally read and not just pick books that'll help you make your goal. With that in mind, I recently plowed my way through book #21 of 2005, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.

Fear and Loathing is Thompson's gonzo journalism style account of his travels with the 1972 Democratic Presidential candidates as they work their way across the country fighting to win enough delegates to become the eventual Democratic nominee. Thompson's book continues after the DNC following the Democratic winner, George McGovern, and his flawed campaign to defeat the Republican incumbent Richard Nixon. The book gives an excellent insight into what goes on behind the scenes on a campaign trail and really provides a different perspective on how the political process works in our country. For a more detailed review, you can check out Tom Seligson's review in the New York Times.

Reading this book reminded me a lot of reading Stephen Elliot's recent political journal Looking Forward To It which follows the 2004 Democratic nominees up to the Democratic National Convention. In fact the correlation between the two elections is pretty interesting. McGovern was an anti-war candidate running during a time of war which many people felt was unjust. McGovern was a liberal candidate (more Dean than Kerry) taking on an unpopular conservative President who disdained the media. Many Democrats thought Nixon was very beatable in '72, but they didn't know if they had anyone who was the right candidate to do it (basically an 'Anybody but Nixon' mantra). McGovern felt that he could win the election by securing the Democratic base and motivating a large youth vote, only to find out later that the youth vote never showed up come election time. Nixon ran a well orchestrated campaign with record setting financing, while McGovern failed to set a clear platform and was eventually written off as indecisive. With Nixon's landslide victory, many people felt the '72 election signified a dramatic swing to the right in the country's politics. It's interesting to see some of the same scenarios playing out again 32 years later. I guess the good news for Democrats is that Nixon was out of office a mere two years later and by 1976 the Dems were back in the White House.