I got to page 150 or so & gave up, reading the last chapter & calling it a day. Rambling. About an election I was too young to participate in and about hoards of individuals I know nothing about. I found it really hard going. There were some interesting anecdotes and illuminating character observations, but I really hated the rest. For my first Thompson read, I should have read another of his works, say Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

“No doubt about it. My only objection is that I disagree with almost everything he said.” “What?” “Yeah—I’m for all those things: Amnesty, Acid, Abortion…”

There were some funny moments in this, but listening to the audio version felt like having an angry drunk guy yell at you for 17 hours straight…so I think I might have enjoyed reading the physical copy better. You can definitely tell it was written in the 70s, Thompson had zero interest in being politically correct. It was interesting getting a first person insight on the Nixon campaign, HOWEVER, I was hoping to learn more about the political side of this campaign given it is an election year now. Overall it just felt like rambling as I see I am doing now

I'm not sure what to say about Hunter S. Thompson's career that hasn't been said, and lord knows he doesn't need more fans (I do!), but this is such a great unfrogettable instructional book on politics at a certain time in a certain place, that it's hard to ignore, and may be his crowning achievement as a writer. Thomspson is both observer and actor in this book, an amphibious character, and he immerses just enough in the campaign to wrap his head around America, while staying enough inside of himself to be a great writer, observing himself. It is a classic of the new journalism that I think has pretty much defined a lot of the best of American writing since the Seventies and Sixties, and was spearheaded by Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test), and Joan Didion (Slouching Towards Bethlehem), though many writers copped the style, as a freedom from the chains of fiction, while at the same time incorporating all of the artistic freedom that expiremental literature offered to the generation of writers coming up in the twenties nad thirties. I think it's what Lena Dunham from Girls calls creative nonfiction.

thompson, you glorious fucker.

My second favorite novel of Thompson's after Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Campaign Trail '72 is the epitome of the gonzo journalism experience. The author has just the right amount of straight journalism and personal experience which of course includes some of his own outrageous reactions and opinions. The amazing thing is how much he got right. His predictions were pretty much correct. We now know that the Democrat Party really did sabotage the McGovern campaign and were fine with four years of Nixon rather then allow a visionary that might rock their boat into the White House. Quite a few things in the books has Thompson's own prankish mark on them such as the strange accusation that Muskie was using drugs. (In a TV interview, Thompson stated something like "I was only reporting the rumors that were out there. I know because I'm the one who started them".) And I was never quite sure if Thompson really did interview McGovern while he was using the urinal. Yet this type of drama is what made Gonzo journalism what it was and, at least in Thompson's hand, existed to illuminate the truths that were hiding just behind the events.

I enjoyed reading this but, god damn, does one ever get a sense of the same weariness Hunter felt as he zoomed around the U.S. following a doomed campaign in a terrifying, high-stakes election. I was reading it mostly at work so that may have figured into my conclusions. This is a takedown of U.S. politics so brutally honest and insightful it is still accurate enough to easily encompass the politics of today.

2019 Reread

God damn, rereading this now was the recipe for some Major Reflection. I believe this book is even better than I thought back in 2014. I wish Hunter hadn't blown his brains out in a Woody Creek shack in 2005 so he could've attacked this current era, the peak of everything he loathed and feared, with all the vigour he could marshal. Of course he'd be dead by now anyway, or totally senile. The writing in this book is enchanting, frenzied, wild, offensive, unthinkable, joyous, perverse, and even remarkably accurate and insightful.

"Okay," I said finally, "the reason Nixon put Agnew and the Goldwater freaks in charge of the party this year is that he knows they can't win '76—but it was a good short-term trade; they have to stay with him this year, which will probably be worth a point or two in November—and that's important to Nixon, because he thinks it's going to be close: F*** the polls. They always follow reality instead of predicting it.... But the real reason he turned the party over to the Agnew/Goldwater wing is that he knows most of the old-line Democrats who just got stomped by McGovern for the nomination wouldn't mind seeing George get taken out in '72 if they know they can get back in the saddle if they're willing to wait four years."

Bobo laughed, understanding it instantly. Pimps and hustlers have a fine instinct for politics. "What you're saying is that Nixon cashed his whole check," he said. "He doesn't give a flying f*** what happens once he gets re-elected—because once he wins, it's all over for him anyway, right? He can't run again..."
"Yeah," I said, pausing to twist the top off one of the ale bottles I'd been pulling out of the bag. "But the thing you want to understand is that Nixon has such a fine understanding of the way politicians think that he knew people like Daley and Meany and Ted Kennedy would go along with him—because it's in their interest now to have Nixon get his second term, in exchange for a guaranteed Democratic victory in 1976."
"God damn," he said. "That's beautiful! They're gonna trade him four years now for eight later, right? Give Nixon his last trip in '72, then Kennedy moves in eight years in '76.... Jesus, that's so rotten I really have to admire it. " He chuckled, "Boy, I thought I was cynical!"

The above is the essential crux of the book, when I read it this time around it impressed me considerably. And another solid quote, for good measure:

"I think it might be better to have the President sort of like the King of England—or the Queen—and have the real business of the presidency conducted by... a City Manager-type, a Prime Minister, somebody who's directly answerable to Congress, rather than a person who moves all his friends into the White House and does whatever he wants for four years. The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It's come to the point where you almost can't run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip on each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics."

A recent viewing of all of Ken Burns' The Vietnam War, made this reading much more effective as well and helped explain the mood of the time, and clarified some of Hunter's asides.

Essential; worth reading again every four years and surprisingly relevant every time.

Loathsome. Wry. Biting. Witty. Takes no prisoners.
Analysis and keen observation at it's best.

Will return to review.

I love Hunter's love for Nixon almost as much as I love Hunter himself.

To summarise the book:

"NIXON IS AN ABSOLUTE PRICK. VOTE NIXON!"

I went through this book like a buzzsaw through a piece of wood. It helps that I love Hunter S. Thompson to begin with- I love his style, his meandering prose, his blending and blurring of fact and fiction, his general drug-taking, booze drinking hedonistic lifestyle that just seems like a hurricane of insane... fun. Not that I'm saying I'd be OK with taking large amounts of narcotics these days, but had I been around back in the 70s, I have a feeling I would have been growing long, shaggy, 'Dazed and Confused' like hair and smoking copious amounts of ganja. I mean, what else was there to do in the 70s?

But, back to the book: basically Thompson hit the campaign trail and followed South Dakota Senator George McGovern through the long, arduous slog of the Democratic Primaries through the convention in Miami and all the way to an epic beatdown at the hands of Richard Nixon- who was re-elected and then promptly impaled himself on the Watergate Scandal two years later. Looking at the bulk of Thompson's analysis, it seems that McGovern ran initially as an anti-establishment politician a sort of anti-politician Washington outsider who gained a lot of strength in the early primaries because people brought into the notion that he could actually affect real change in the country. (Weird how history repeats itself, isn't it- sounds a lot like our current President, doesn't it?)

Unfortunately, that image was shattered by the Democratic National Convention in Miami. McGovern went into with a problem: he had won by beating up the party establishment, unfortunately, the perception was that he couldn't win without their support. This perception turned out to be correct in the end, because Humphrey-Muskie-Daley-Party Bosses crowd essentially sat on their hands and didn't lift a finger to help McGovern. There was a further contradiction to be found here, because by seeking the support of the party old guard, McGovern destroyed his image as a Washington outsider, anti-establishment politician- after that people just saw him as a typical politician. Throw in the fact that Convention floor wrangling meant that he delivered his acceptance speech at 3 AM and that he picked an establishment Senator, Tom Eagleton of Missouri as his running mate who had been hospitalized for depression and undergone shock therapy treatment imploded in his face and Eagleton had to be replaced on the ticket.

Pretty much, McGovern looked like he might have something going up until the '72 Convention and then it all fell apart- in a big hurry and in a big way.

Thompson brings his usual mania to the proceedings and if there was one thing that I was curious about during the reading of this book, it was just how much of it was true and how much of it was completely made up- by the author. I know the rumor that candidate Ed Muskie was on ibogaine actually got some play in the press during the campaign- and it was also totally and utterly made up. Whether Thompson did give his press credentials to a friend of a friend who got wasted off his ass and caused chaos on Muskie's somewhat boring whistlestop train tour of Florida are questions that might be worthy of greater investigation. I don't think it matters really... Thompson makes it interesting. Whether you want to call this non-fiction, total fiction, weird memoir or some kind of metafiction I think it ranks as probably the most interesting, informative, ultimately revealing portrait of a modern presidential campaign that I've ever read.

Overall: Not as good as 'Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas'- though what could be? Dr. Gonzo turns his manic gaze upon the down and dirty world of Presidential politics and produces a wild, wonderful journey through the 1972 campaign. A must have for any true political junkie. Like me.

The P.E. teacher, S.S. Gruppenführer Mr. Martin, in my view, was a sick bastard.

If I'd known the word fascist at the time, I'd have called him that, too, but I was only 10 years old and not well informed. It was inimical to the power structure of Sanders Elementary School to undermine their own authority by telling us, and certainly, therefore, not their inclination to yank from his neck the lanyard that held the whistle that was always perched between his lips for constant blowing, which he did all the goddamned time. Getting our pipsqueak little asses into line with military efficiency was just one of his favorite things. The other was satisfying his sadistic streak. He LOVED dodgeball and the possibilities it presented a physically fit, fully grown proto-Nazi to turkey shoot through bunches of cowering kids by sending a red rubber cannonball screaming from his hands into his victims with a sickening vein-bursting whack that echoed in the gymnasium rafters. Those so targeted and walloped could mercifully leave the game, usually with only minor injuries. And, that was usually my strategy -- to run into the oncoming ball, but in such a way as to only get grazed, and then sent out to watch the others take their lumps. The pressure of staying in, of wondering how many kids would have to go down before I was left alone out there on the waxy wooden floor, the last man standing and naked to the menace that was now entirely directed at you, was just too much to bear.

But, there was that one time when something stirred inside of me; that rebellious tendency that surfaced from time to time -- that willingness to challenge authority in way that could only end badly, and you damned well knew it but you had to do it anyway otherwise you couldn't live with yourself. Maybe it stemmed from some residual resentment related to something else that had happened in that very same gym recently: when, for some reason that makes little sense, Mr. Martin had the kids "vote" for either presidential incumbent Richard Milhouse Nixon or his Democratic challenger, George McGovern, for the 1972 presidential race. The kids who wanted Nixon were directed to stand at one wall, while the kids opting for McGovern were to take their places on the opposite wall. My parents, I knew, were Democrats and hated Nixon, but I was just a little kid, so what the fuck did I know about politics? Why would I care? How the hell was I supposed to know who to pick? As I watched waves of kids siphon off to the Nixon wall -- probably because that's who the Nazi Mr. Martin preferred -- while only a scraggly contingent of about a half dozen McGovern supporters sheepishly veered off and went their own way, I succumbed to the herd, and went for Nixon. There I was looking across the cavernous room at a motley six kids who stood their own ground, defying peer pressure and the herd mentality, shuffled off and exposed for the radicals they were to be publicly humiliated -- and it made me feel ashamed, somehow. I admired those kids. I felt like a sellout.

And now here I was, with that bastard Martin knocking kids down like bowling pins with the glee of Lucifer on his fucking smug Aryan face. I wanted to take this fucker down. I dodged the flaming red ball until I was the last man standing. For minutes on end, the contest went on. There was a hush in the room as the kids marveled. Nobody, and they knew it, had ever lasted this long in the game. I evaded Martin's meteors like a son of a bitch. At the same time, Martin was sidestepping my return volleys. With the pressure mounting, and knowing with my weakening arm that I could never connect, I finally gave in and deliberately took a soft shot. It was a moment of mixed feelings: I'd stood up and hung in there, but I'd also caved. In some ways, I think the other kids wanted me to win, but I was simply outmanned. I had to call it a draw in my own mind.

So, that's where I was in 1972, when the events in this book by Hunter S. Thompson were taking place. I remember the times, at least the public ones, alluded to in the book, especially the shooting of Democratic primary candidate George Wallace. I'd lived through the shootings of both Kennedys, Dr. King, Gov. Wallace, and in short order the attempts on Presidents Ford and Reagan. In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, Thompson vividly captures the crazy tenor of the times and draws a clear bead on the political beast in a way that only a guy who gives no fucks could. The book is about the nutty shit going on behind the scenes, not just of the campaigns but in his own surreal chemically assisted life. One really gets a sense of the grueling demands on a reporter constantly in motion, pulled in three places at once and always under the deadline gun. Not surprisingly, as one reads the book one simply blots out the names of politicians who are now long forgotten, people like Humphrey and Muskie and Scoop Jackson, and replaces them with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump with pretty much the same results. It's deja vu all over again.

It's digressive as hell -- the Gonzoyist of Gonzo -- and fucking hilarious. Thompson nails the micro machinations -- as reportage of an event in the making ought to -- but isn't always as sharp on the macro big picture -- though even here he offers plenty that's valid and worth pondering (the politics of fear, as well as the chicanery and dirty dealings of the Democratic Party, for instance, seem not to have changed one bit in the intervening 45+ years). It's a bit of a sprawling mess really, with something of value for students of political science as well as those who just want to follow Thompson's antics. Most astute readers will pick up on when Thompson is completely fabricating stuff and otherwise. Thompson's 500-page magnum opus is impressively ambitious yet still not a perfectly hewn work -- which Thomson freely admits herein-- and because of its fits and starts feel (the delegate procedural minutiae can get yawn inducing) I can't quite rate it as highly as I would HST's freer flights of fancy. I wanted to give it four stars most of the way, but had to be honest with myself: there are a lot of diamonds in this rough, but also a lot of rough. My favorite part of the book has Thompson dropping the comedy to rail passionately about the fate of Vietnam veterans such as disabled Ron Kovic, gathered in Miami to confront the monstrous politicians who sent them to that useless war.

The casual racism will throw some younger readers for a loop, mainly because they too often demonstrate an inability to glean subtleties of context and to understand that the left-leaning Thompson is channeling racist attitudes as part of his satire rather than condoning racism.

More problematic for me were the long sections near the end of the book devoted to an editor's clarification interview with Thompson over events already covered in the book, and a postmortem interview between McGovern and HST -- all of which was kind of like beating a dead horse and I pretty much skimmed through them.

I've had this copy of the book sitting around for 10 years, and am finally glad to slam dunk it. If Thompson is your bag, which he is to me, you'll dig it.

eg/kr '19 (fellow Louisvillian to Thompson, but not quite as weird -- not quite.)

P.S. - If I've previously used the Mr. Martin story for other reviews, which vague memory seems to suggest, then I apologize. Similarly, pardon the erstaz Thompson style (it was fun to do, anyway). It gets told differently each time to suit the present need, in any case.

Hunter S. Thompson gave me douchebag vibes before this so I thought there was a possibility I wouldn't like this. Thank god I was proven wrong! He starts in 1971 and follows the democratic primaries, the nomination process, the election in November, and the aftermath of the remainder of 1972. All the way through he is cynical, ruthless, and honest. This was expected tbh because it’s coming from an outsider to politics, but he would also have these tender and reall moments where he really saw hope in George McGovern, the democratic nominee. He believed in McGovern’s want to make systematic change. And I loved that. It's so easy to get into politics and feel a stake in the change that could happen with the help of politicians. Then, to have it never come to fruition leaves you with a lack of hope and trust in systems that are supposed to work.

What is so sick about this book though is because he was the Rolling Stone's political correspondent, he had to produce his work every couple of weeks. From this work, he put together the book. The chapters feel as if they're happening in real time. His opinions sway and his predictions evolve.