Selling of the President, 1968 (1969)

Nixon'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 and sharp, and its cynicism about political marketing has become the common sense of every campaign book since. It spent 31 weeks on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list, and McGinniss was 26 when it did. Pair it with the other 1968 books here, which watch the same year from the street and the convention floor.