1968-An American Melodrama
1972-Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
1992-Primary Colors (Yeah, I know it’s fiction but still…)
2008-Game Change
Your picks?
Authors?
1968: Joe MGinniss, The Selling of the President 1968
1972: Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
I haven’t read campaign books in a long time (can’t you tell?), but I can recommend those two.
There’s not much point to it since with the advent of the internet you’re bombarded with it 24/7 during campaign season. Having said that, Fear and Loathing is a classic.
I’d argue that the Carville/Matalin joint memoir about the 1992 campaign, All’s Fair: Love, War & Running For President, is amazing for how much of an insider perspective it gives of BOTH sides of that election.
The books still give inside info that isn’t easily found on the internet. I follow this stuff 24/7 too, but there’s still tons of inside stuff I never knew.
1988- Whose Broad Stripes and Great Stars? Germond/Witcover- I’ve never read before or since a more thorough look at an election.
1992- Quest for the Presidency- Peter Goldman. Actually better than the Germond/Witcover book covering that same year.
2008/2012-Game Change, both of them.
One thing that’s always bugged me is that I’ve never seen a book covering the 2000 election in depth, only books that covered the recount specifically. I’ve looked hard, does anyone know of a 2000 book that I’ve missed? 2004 would be nice too, since that was also a barnburner of an election.
1992 is probably the most well documented election in history in terms of the sheer number of books written about it. I still think that’s one of the most dramatic elections ever, even if the end result wasn’t that close. But that was a race that for awhile could have had any one of three winners.
Some good histories on older elections:
1800: A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign by Edward Larson
1864: Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency by Jack Waugh
1876: Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 by Roy Morris
1920: 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents by David Pietrusza
1948: 1948: Harry Truman’s Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America by David Pietrusza
1860, I liked "Year of Meteors’ by Douglas Egerton.
If you want the gonzo down-and-dirty version, try Smashmouth: Two Years in the Gutter with Al Gore and George W. Bush: Notes from the 2000 Campaign Trail By Dana Milbank(2001), and if you want in-depth analysis, you might want to check out The Election of 2000: Reports and Interpretations by Anthony Corrado, E. J. Dionne Jr., Kathleen A. Frankovic, Paul S. Herrnson, Marjorie Randon Hershey, William G. Mayer, Monika L. McDermott, Wilson Carey McWilliams and Gerald M. Pomper.
I am surprised I am the first to mention Theodore White’s Making of the President about the 1960 election. I read it a long time ago as a student and it was one of the first books that excited me about US politics. He also wrote books about the next few elections.
Have you read What it Takesabout that election? Haven’t read it myself but it’s legendary for its detailed look at the candidates and the primaries. Despite being more than a 1000 pages long, it apparently doesn’t spend much time on the general !
THat’s becuase the primaries were so interesting that year.
What it Takes was an awesome book.
Turns out it was already on my Amazon wish list and I had forgotten about it. Definitely going to order it on Kindle as soon as I can.
One innovation I would like to see is a book which combines narrative journalism, policy analysis and data/charts, written by a team of journalists. 538 is ideally placed to do something like this and Vox would probably do a good job too.
It’s a film, not a book, but I highly recommend The War Room, which is a documentary of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign.