By Scott Farris
I wanted to absolutely love this book, and I came away really enjoying it. Political history from the early 20th and 19th centuries has fascinated me for some time now, especially as people say, "Politics has never been this bitter, this ugly, this slanderous!"
Take a minute and read about ANY of the elections this country has had ever. I'd say our politics is red in tooth and claw, but we (mostly) stop short of actual violence. I digress.
This book is summed up neatly on its cover: a look at the presidential candidates who did not win, but nevertheless managed to alter the political and/or cultural landscape in some way. (He says it better.) We start with three-time loser Henry Clay, master statesman, and end with the odd trio of Gore, Kerry and McCain. In between are eight others of major note, and after the bulk of the book, Farris quickly bios the rest of the losers start to finish (those who lost and never won, as opposed to a Nixon, who lost in 1960 only to win eight years later).
Are you interested in knowing more about some of people who dramatically changed the course of the nation - without holding its highest office? Fan of history and elections? Politics? Biography? This is a stand-out book, truly. But part of what you get out of it is influenced by what you bring in, to paraphrase Yoda.
Farris is a journalist and one-time "almost" politician himself, as well as a veteran of several political campaigns - Democrat campaigns. That isn't meant to sound dirty, by the by, but I do think it colors his view of these twelve lead politicians. As we have established (and you would know if you read The Political Hoedown), I lean to the right and so view some of these politicians and their impacts differently.
Most were enigmas to me going in. I've read a bit on 19th century US history, primarily anecdotal stuff as I've not had the fortitude to crack open the scholarly tomes dotting my shelves (What Hath God Wrought; Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men; The House; etc.). But I don't know too much about Henry Clay or Stephen Douglas. Likewise, William Jennings Bryan, Al Smith and Thomas Dewey are all just names (though the first I know through the version of him found in Inherit The Wind as well as his "Cross of Gold" speech which just picture! Just imagine seeing something that dramatic unfold with its 30+ minute tumultuous ovation, certainly alien in this generation). It isn't until Adlai Stevenson that these names start to bring a greater relevance to those of my generation. He's followed by Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, Ross Perot and the trio of millennial candidates mentioned above.
Throughout the book, we are treated to what the politicians did that was perhaps more important or of greater impact than the normal presidential campaign loser. Henry Clay's stature kept the Civil War from breaking out earlier, Stephen Douglas provided the glue that held the Democratic Party together - in in favor of the Union - when the Civil War did break out, Al Smith was the first major ticket Catholic, Dewey and Stevenson brought intellectualism to the fore, &etc.
From what I know of US political history, his conclusions are fair and accurate. Though he is a self-identified Democrat, that's not a sticking point for his reporting and analysis - with perhaps one exception (and to conservatives, it's a biggee): Barry Goldwater, the arch-conservative (R) candidate in the 1964 campaign who lost in a landslide to LBJ. Farris is correct in the claim that he changed the ideological trajectory of the party from the "Rockefeller" moderate wing (heralded by Dewey, made manifest in Ike) to a more socially conservative/proto-libertarian angle.
Ronald Reagan is the beneficiary of that shift, but the rest of what Goldwater "did is specious, in that Farris assigns blame and a degree of shame on the man. Aside from ideology, due to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) defected to vote for Goldwater. The prevailing thought is that these were all racist voters (well...majority? Super majority? Talk among yourselves) and that, now, the Republican Party was the party that embraced the "white" vote in its negative connotation. Eek. And it's put on Goldwater.
I'll give Farris the conservative shift, but not the "bigotry" angle. That was a rebellion against party, but not necessarily for Republicans, who voted in greater percentage majority for the Civil Rights Act than the Democrats (GOP opponents, like Goldwater, said you couldn't "legislate morality" or raised state's rights issues. The former has merit to this day, in that we can't tell someone how to feel about someone else, but it was a losing argument on such an issue - for good reason).
But I sort of digress. That chapter simply made raised my hackles some, as I dislike the racist association left-leaning authors and "thinkers" will place on Republicans (or non-Democrats).
The rest of the book was very solid and entertaining, if not always so deep. I hoped for a little more detail on some policy minutiae, but that's me. I think a section on those who attempted to get the party nomination but failed, through in-fighting, scandal or death, would have been a welcome addition. Many of them became major forces in US politics (Ted Kennedy, anyone?).
With an election upon us, this is a great book to read on either side. Should Romney lose to Obama, perhaps he'll end up in a future edition as one of millennials who lost but went on do greater things. I'm sure he'd prefer the alternative.
3.5/5
-Erik
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