|
Review by Bob Ruggiero
If the great unwashed (and, according to statistics, uninterested) voting electorate learned one thing during the 1996 presidential campaign, it's how much we disdain the entire diseased political charade. And with a higher-than-ever influx of media reports on how the campaign was reported by the media, even those allergic to voting booths could wax eloquent about concepts like "negative attack ads," "biased polling data" and "spin doctoring."
Into this maelstrom steps Michael Lewis, journalist for "The New Republic" and author of the Wall Street-skewering "Liar's Poker," with this diary of his impressions and encounters during the campaign. Alternately hilarious, sad and downright bizarre, "Trail Fever" takes elements of political reporting classics like "The Boys on the Bus" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" and brings the whole long, strange trip into the '90s with skill, substance and all-too-true satire.
With no set agenda, Lewis travels with the candidates (Clinton, Dole), the almost-rans (Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes) and the future trivia questions (Alan Keyes, Morry Taylor). Surprisingly, it's the bombastic and balls-to-the-wall businessman candidate Taylor who entrances both Lewis and the reader. Lewis' keen eye also allows us a glimpse into the candidates who never made the evening news, like the compulsive foot self-massaging habits of Republican candidate Phil Gramm.
Lewis shows how the '96 runs were reduced to a series of down-to-the-last-detail planned "spontaneous events," and the controlled use of new media (talk shows, infomercials) to avoid the nagging questions posed by the old media.
Of most interest to Lewis is the proliferation of "rented strangers" around the candidate -- paid political consultants whose job descriptions are vague and who are rarely caught without resume in hand the moment their candidate seems to falter. In fact, Bob Dole comes across as a mere puppet in his own effort to become the Leader of the Free World as "aides" buzz about him, deciding on his every move and utterance.
After reading "Trail Fever," the question that Lewis wants us to ask ourselves is why would anyone want this job enough to put themselves (and the American people) through the utter hell of the modern campaign where people act in ways that would be ridiculed under any other circumstance? We may not have the answer -- but "Trail Fever" is at least one wildly entertaining and insightful guidebook.
Bob Ruggiero is a freelance journalist in Houston, Texas.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
Support your