Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
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 Early edition hardcover. |
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| Author | Hunter S. Thompson |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Ralph Steadman |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Gonzo Journalism |
| Publisher | Straight Arrow Books |
| Released | 1973 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 506 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0879320539 |
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 is a collection of articles covering the 1972 presidential campaign serialized in Rolling Stone magazine and later released as a book, written by gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson and illustrated by Ralph Steadman.
The book focuses almost exclusively on the Democratic Party's primaries and the breakdown of the party as it splits between the different candidates, including the manic maneuvering of the George McGovern campaign during the Miami convention as they sought to ensure the nomination of their candidate despite attempts to block the nomination by other candidates, notably the George Wallace campaign.
Thompson began his coverage of the campaign in December 1971, just as the race toward the primaries was beginning, from his rented apartment in Washington, DC (a situation he compared to "living in an armed camp, a condition of constant fear"). Over the next 12 months, in voluminous detail, he covered every aspect of the campaign, from the smallest rally to the raucous conventions with hardly time to catch his breath.
Because of the freewheeling nature of the campaign, a first-generation fax machine was procured at great expense by the magazine for Thompson. Dubbing it "the mojo wire", Thompson used the new technology to extend the writing process precariously close to printing deadlines, often haphazardly sending in hastily written notes as the "article" mere hours before the magazine went to press. Fellow writers and editors would have to assemble the finished product with Thompson over the phone.
[edit] Insider look at the Political Campaigns
A self-described political junkie, Thompson fixes his sights early on McGovern as the candidate to which he will attach himself. Dismissing 1968 Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey as a "hopeless old hack" and presumed nominee Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, whose campaign he said exuded a "stench of death" Thompson was vindicated in his choice of McGovern. The nomination of McGovern was not assured, however, even as others in the Democratic party attempted to recruit Teddy Kennedy to run, or focused on George Wallace's ability to win the South as reasons the party should nominate anyone but McGovern.
With brutal honesty Thompson narrates the smallest decisions on what speech to give where (from school gymnasiums for young voters, to public halls in heavily Polish districts of Milwaukee, to the attempt to create buzz for Muskie through an old-fashioned and disastrous whistle-stop train tour through Florida dubbed the Sunshine Special) to the ill-fated selection of Thomas Eagleton as the Vice-Presidential candidate.
The book is notable for its introduction not only to the candidates of 1972 but also its early glimpses of future political leaders. Gary Hart of Colorado, who served as McGovern's campaign manager and would later run for and win a seat in the US Senate, and Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, who would himself capture the 1976 Democratic nomination and Presidency, are two examples.
Thompson's hatred of Richard Nixon, the "he-who-must-not-be-named" character of the book, is on display throughout in diatribes on policy, and personal invective directed at Nixon and his inner circle. Despite this, Thompson humanizes the incumbent through several episodes, including recounting a private interview with Nixon in New Hampshire during the 1968 presidential election that largely focused on their mutual fascination with football. In later years and articles, Thompson recounted his amazement that Nixon wasn't just talking about football but that he seemed to have a "genuine interest" in the game, and often cited the encounter as further evidence of how Nixon's every public maneuver was politically calculated even if it hid his true self.
By the end of the 1972 campaign and its disastrous defeat for McGovern (Nixon won all but one state — Massachusetts — even winning McGovern's home state of South Dakota) Thompson was thoroughly exhausted and burned out on the process of politics.
[edit] Critique of journalism
As much as it is about the candidates and their various political processes, the book is equally a critical look at the mainstream media coverage of the campaigns and politics. Criticizing the various pundits and political 'experts', Thompson rages against the often incestuous relationships between politicians and those who write about them. The most famous example of this being Muskie's supposed addiction to the West African drug ibogaine, and the well-known fact of Eagleton's electroshock therapy for depression which was later broken through the press as a scandal of their own making.
Timothy Crouse, who provided supplemental coverage of the campaign for Rolling Stone, wrote a memoir called “The Boys on the Bus” that critically analyzes the coverage of the '72 presidential campaign. In the book, often a standard text in university journalism courses, Crouse echoes Thompson’s observations on the Pack Journalism mentality of the reporters covering the campaign, who were greatly dependent on the access provided by the Nixon campaign staff. Crouse describes Thompson as the one reporter who broke from the pack, however, and later printings of “The Boys on the Bus” contain an introduction by Thompson.
