Product Description
With the same drug-addled alacrity and jaundiced wit that made Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a hilarious hit, Hunter S. Thompson turns his savage eye and gonzo heart to the repellent and seductive race for President.He deconstructs the 1972 campaigns of idealist George McGovern and political hack Richard Nixon, ending up with a political vision that is eerily prophetic.A classic!
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Amazon.com Review
With the same drug-addled alacrity and jaundiced wit that made Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a hilarious hit, Hunter S. Thompson turns his savage eye and gonzo heart to the repellent and seductive race for President. He deconstructs the 1972 campaigns of idealist George McGovern and political hack Richard Nixon, ending up with a political vision that is eerily prophetic. A classic!
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 Lazy stream of consciousness ( kinksrock )
I am fascinated by elections and campaigns, and the election of 1972 was especially interesting, and there is much to learn from it as many of the events in 1972 seemed to repeat themselves in 2004 and 2008. In 1972 and 2004, we were involved in a war that was beginning to lose support, scandals had broken (Watergate in 1972, Plamegate in 2004), and the Democratic candidate just couldn't seem to get his act together.
In 1972 and 2008 we had Democratic campaigns that were described as "grass roots". Obama's victory is, in a way, McGovern's victory 36 years later. Obama did what McGovern did, but did it competently.
So I really wanted to like this book. I already read Theodore White's "The Making of the President 1972", so I knew the facts, but I thought Hunter S. Thompson would provide more of the gritty details that White may have found too unappealing to describe.
And, in a way, Thompson did that, but the book is so much more about Thompson and his drug habits than it is about the election. It could have taken place under any circumstances. Let's say Thompson went on a European vacation and got drunk and stoned . . . probably would end up being a pretty similar book.
I got more than halfway through the book, and actually enjoyed how Thompson described his loathing for Muskie and Humphrey. I've never read such hateful prose about those two, and it was pretty funny.
But I got frustrated by his stream-of-consciousness prose and complaints about how he couldn't meet his deadlines, so he'd just toss out some quick, unorganized thoughts. Very lazy. And yes, I'm aware that drink and drugs were involved, influencing his ability to write comprehensibly and timely.
I think if you enjoy books like "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" you'll like this one. I don't.
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 Cited by most notable historians of our time
On C-Span's "In Depth" program, Brian Lamb interviewed Richard Norton Smith and Douglas Brinkley. Richard Norton Smith is probably the most notable living historian specializing on the American Presidency, having had a part in many of the presidential libraries and so forth. Douglas Brinkley is widely regarded as the most prominent living American historian.
Smith cited this book as the best work ever written about the U.S. Elections process, and Brinkley concurred. For those of you who know Smith and Brinkley by reputation, that says far more than anything I could write here. It's not only some of the best political writing of all time, it's some of HST's best work, too. Fantastic.
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 Views from the Edge ( keehn9 )
I have read a number of Hunter Thompson's books. Some were very good and some were just too "over the top". There are elements of both in "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972". This book focusses on the 1972 Democratic campaign for President beginning with the start of the primary campaign. Thompson has his favorites in the race and it is helpful that one of them, George McGorvern, wins the Democratic nomination. Along the way to the nomination, we are treated to Thompson's vile opinions of others in the race such as Edmund Muskie and, especially, Hubert Humphrey.
Thompson's book is essentially a compilation of articles that were written for "The Rolling Stone" throughout the campaign. The articles meld together well. Thompson appears to have been treated nearly the same as other "main stream" reporters although there are times that he seems to be off on his own. The book concludes with a helpful insight to the reasons behind the catastrophic loss suffered by McGovern.
I enjoyed this book for the insight and the recollections that it provided me. I was 20 year's old in 1972 and, thanks to President Nixon, able to vote in my first election. I was an avid supporter of McGovern back then. I understood his reasons for dropping his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, after disclosures of Eagleton's past mental health treatment became public. In the week that followed that revelation, the only news that the press seemed to write about the McGovern campaign was an on-going analysis of Eagleton's suitability for the office. With nothing coming out about McGovern or his issues, it seemed an unfortunate inevibility to have to cast aside Eagleton to be able to refocus on McGovern. Of course, that only made matters worse and McGovern's campaign never recovered from it. Thompson gives a fair amount of insight to that event that helped me to understand it better. There were other insights as well but that leads me to my objection of Hunter Thompson's book. There were enough scenes of the standard drug-crazed observations that made me realize that I couldn't be sure what was fact or what was a sort of morning after effort to recollect the foggy night before. Some things clearly seemed impossible to be true. Some things seemed clearly a representation of factual inside information. However, there were enough questionable accounts that I had to set aside because of Thompson's wasted pages spent building up his persona. Were these events real or imagined like the mescaline deal taking place outside his motel window? Were these quotaions accurrate or just as imagined as the various mind-altering drugs that Thompson was sure some of the various candidates were taking? The problem with Hunter Thompson is that you never know what to believe. He took on a worthy topic and had a lot to share. A lengthy transcript of one of his interviews betrays a fairly normal, intelligent journalist's questions of a candidate. If he had played it straight, this would have been a much more significant contribution to the Presidential Campaign of 1972. As it is, it's an interesting mixture of fact and fiction that a reader can take or leave.
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A Political Junkie's Textbook ( tomdegan )
It is revealing that thirty-five years after this book was first published, it is still in print and going strong. Bear in mind that this was originally a series of magazine articles, written under pressure of deadline for Rolling Stone. I could read it (and will read it) again and again. Just think of Theodore White's "Making of a President" series. Just give Teddy a couple of hits of blotter acid and you have "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" by Hunter S. Thompson.
This could only be described as journalistic poetry. The passion rage and ultimate disillusionment expressed by Thompson throughout these pages are as moving today as they were when first written in 1972. Covering the doomed campaign between a crooked used car salesman like Dick Nixon and a statesman of George's McGovern's stature must have been a soul wrenching experience. Given the benefit of hindsight, especially what the months following its publication would reveal about the depths of the Nixon Gang's corruption, reading this book is all-the-more bittersweet. But it's also funny - screamingly so.
It really shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with his work that Hunter would eventually be consumed by his own rage. It can't be easy for a person with so clear a grasp of the hypocrisies of the so-called American dream to live amongst us as a functioning, mentally healthy human being. How could it have been easy being Hunter Thompson?
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
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I'm Fearful After Reading This...
This book's setting is eerily similar to the current state of affairs going on in with the 2008 Presidential Election, with the Democrats picking themselves apart while the Republicans sit back and enjoy the show. Richard Nixon is shown as the abomination that he was and HST's writing is as animated and humorous as I have ever seen it. This book surpassed my expectations and was a surprisingly fast read at 496 pages. I was left begging for more political insight and HST wit. A must read for any HST fan or anyone interested in the inner workings ( mostly the dark side) of politics. A great book that shows that HST was and is probably better than his already sizable legend permits.
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