Tagged!

I got tagged by Dan TUA a short while ago.

Here are the rules for this particular tagging:

• Find the nearest book
• Name the book
• The author
• Turn to page 123
• Go to the fifth sentence on the page
• Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
• Tag three more folks.

This is my first time being tagged, so if I mess up the etiquette, sorry. A'ight. Here goes.

The Boys on the Bus, by Timothy Crouse.

They saved most of their venom for George McGovern, however. They called McGovern "the doyen of the Democratic Party's left fringe." They consistently played down his victories and scoffed at his candidacy.

I now tag: Brando, Dan Weston, and Jinnet.

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Here's the etiquette part I don't know about. Do I get to say anything more about the book?

Assuming "yes" …

As it happens, I recently picked this book up for $0.99, from the used book annex of the local B&N. (Haven't found a good independent used book store here in Rochacha yet.) I have been toying with writing something about this book, so it's right here next to the keyboard.

The Boys on the Bus is a pretty amazing book. It was written in 1972, originally as an article for Rolling Stone, back when that mag wasn't a rag, and Crouse later fleshed it out into a book.

For the young 'uns, here's some context: In 1972, Richard Nixon, a Republican, was running for reelection. Watergate had not yet become a big issue. George McGovern, a senator from South Dakota, was at first considered a long shot candidate for the Democratic Party nomination. Edmund Muskie, a senator from Maine, was the early favorite, and Hubert Humphrey, a senator from Minnesota and VP under Lyndon Johnson (1963-1968), was a close second.

Four years earlier, in 1968, Johnson did not run for reelection. Humphrey became the nominee, with Muskie as his running mate. They lost a fairly close election to Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Finally, 1972 was the the first year where winning primaries became critical to securing the nomination.

I hope it's not a spoiler for anybody to say that Nixon won reelection in a landslide. Many people who have a passing familiarity with the 1972 race think of the McGovern campaign as a train wreck. As I was a little young to be voting that year, I pretty much was of that camp, too, prior to reading this book. It turns out to have been a little more complicated than that.

Crouse gave me the sense that 1972 saw the beginning of so many things that make the way we elect presidents seem broken: the packaging of candidates, the way the game is stacked in favor of the incumbent, how just a few nationally-known reporters have a terrible amount of influence over the average voter, and how the marathon campaigning with an exhausted and bored press corps in tow colors the perceptions of these few reporters.

If you're as cynical as I am, there may not be a lot to surprise you here, at least initially. But as I kept reading, I found myself fascinated by the inside baseball, the close-ups of many who would later become major players in the punditocracy, and the day-by-day evolution of the Watergate scandal as news. I was hugely impressed by Crouse's observations and prescience, not to mention his sheer ability to write.

While reading about how a little meme (a word not then used) could get repeated over and over again by those covering the campaign, until the average citizen thought that's all there was to know about a candidate, I was reminded of several parallels to more recent events: the Dean scream. Gore as a liar. Bush as a guy you'd (supposedly) like to have a beer with. Hillary/Shrillary.

Crouse also makes a compelling case about the bias in the press at that time. Tell me if this (CliffsNotes version) sounds familiar: Many newspaper publishers and network executives -- the top bosses -- were staunch Republicans. Guess how the endorsements tended to run. Most of the reporters, on the other hand, though not necessarily Democrats, tended to be liberal-leaning on most of the issues. Crouse argues that reporters' tones suffered from these facts for two reasons: First, concern about job security, and second, being aware of their own leanings, they tended to over-compensate. They were far tougher on the Democratic candidates, and despite their near universal loathing for Nixon, most of them bent over backwards when reporting on him.

The book isn't all dark. There are lots of funny stories and a good collection of pictures, and the tearing down of more than one sacred cow. But there are powerful lessons to be learned by reading this book, especially now, when the Fourth Estate seems to be ever more frequently falling down on the job. I dream of The Boys on the Bus being added to the reading lists for all high school and college kids. For that matter, it would benefit anyone who lives in a democracy. I'd like to think that if we all read it, we could possibly start fixing some things.

If you want to know more, here's the Amazon page for a reissue edition. At this moment, Powells's has one used copy of the original paperback, as well.