Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1The making of the President, 1960 (1960)The making of the President, 1960 (1960)Published Jan 1, 1960Kennedy against Nixon, 1960 The starting point for everything else here. White followed the race from first primary to election night and wrote it up as one long story with characters, turning points and a cast of advisers, rather than a pile of dispatches. It won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for…0
  2. 2Before the storm (2001)Before the storm (2001) 9.3/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2001Goldwater's defeat, 1964 The one book here written decades after the fact, and it earns its place because it takes the losing side seriously. Perlstein follows the conservative activists who won the Republican nomination for Barry Goldwater, then the landslide defeat, and argues that 1964 was a…0
  3. 3Selling of the President, 1968 (1969)Selling of the President, 1968 (1969) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1969Nixon's television campaign, 1968 Where White watched the candidates, McGinniss sat with the admen. He got inside the team building Richard Nixon's television appearances and recorded, with their own words left in, how a candidate who had lost in 1960 was repackaged for the screen. It is short…0
  4. 4An American Melodrama (1969)An American Melodrama (1969)Published Jan 1, 1969The whole of 1968, from Johnson's exit to Nixon Three British journalists who covered the campaign for a London paper produced the most complete single account of the year that broke American politics: Johnson stepping aside, the primaries, the murder of Robert Kennedy, the chaos in Chicago and,…0
  5. 5Miami and the siege of Chicago (1968)Miami and the siege of Chicago (1968) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1968The 1968 conventions Mailer went to both party conventions on assignment from Harper's: the Republicans in Miami, where Nixon was nominated, and the Democrats in Chicago, where the anti-war protests outside became the story. The result is the most vivid writing in this list and the least…0
  6. 6Fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72 (1973)Fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72 (1973)Published Jan 1, 1973McGovern's run against Nixon, 1972 Thompson's Rolling Stone dispatches from the 1972 race, stitched into a book, follow George McGovern's insurgent campaign through the primaries and the manic maneuvering at the Miami convention, with Thompson's loathing of Nixon on every page. Parts of it are…0
  7. 7The Boys on the Bus (1973)The Boys on the Bus (1973) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1973The press corps, 1972 The same race as Thompson's, seen through the reporters covering it. Crouse grew the book out of his Rolling Stone articles on life on the road with the press, and shows how they really worked: traveling together, sharing the same briefings and drifting toward the same…0
  8. 8Marathon (1977)Marathon (1977)Published Jan 1, 1977Carter's rise, 1972 to 1976 The book on how Jimmy Carter came from outside the national conversation to win the presidency. Witcover traces the 1976 race from its beginnings in 1972, and his central point is that the spread of primaries had turned the pursuit of the presidency into a grueling,…0
  9. 9Blue smoke and mirrors (1981)Blue smoke and mirrors (1981)Published Jan 1, 1981Reagan against Carter, 1980 The standard account of Ronald Reagan's win, from two veteran campaign reporters. Germond and Witcover follow it turning point by turning point, from the summer of 1979 through the bitter Carter and Ted Kennedy primary fight to the general election, and show how…0
  10. 10What it takes (1992)What it takes (1992)Published Jan 1, 1992The 1988 field, both parties The book aides and journalists cite most often, and the one to choose if you read only one here. Cramer spent six years on it and wrote more than a thousand pages about six men who wanted the job: George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole on the Republican side, Joe Biden,…0