A collection of articles covering the 1972 presidential campaign serialized in Rolling Stone and later released as a book, written by gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson and illustrated by Ralph Steadman. Presidential electoral votes by state. ... Rolling Stone is an American magazine devoted to music and popular culture. ... Gonzo Journalism is a journalistic style, most famously used by Hunter S. Thompson. ... Hunter S. Thompson Hunter Stockton Thompson (born Louisville, Kentucky July 18, 1937) is an American journalist and author. ... Ralph Steadman (born May 15, 1936) is a British cartoonist and caricaturist. ...

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. The Democratic Party is one of two major parties in the United States. ... George McGovern. ... George Corley Wallace (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who was elected Governor of Alabama (as a Democrat) four times (1962, 1970, 1974 and 1982) and ran for U.S. President (in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976). ...

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. Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United...

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. Hubert Horatio Humphrey II (May 27, 1911–January 13, 1978) was the 38th Vice President of the United States, twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota and was mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota. ... Edmund Muskie Edmund Sixtus Muskie (Edmund Marciszewski) (March 28, 1914–March 26, 1996) was a Polish-American politician from Maine. ...

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. Thomas Francis Eagleton, LL.B., (born September 4, 1929) is a former U.S. Senator from Missouri. ...

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. Gary Hart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... James Earl Jimmy Carter, Jr. ...

Thompson's hatred of Richard Nixon is on display throughout the book 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. The incumbent, in politics, is the current holder of a political office. ... Presidential electoral votes by state. ...

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. Nevertheless he stirred once again to repeat much of his coverage during the 1992 presidential election. Presidential electoral votes by state. ...

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 Brazilian 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. Ibogaine is a tryptamine-related psychoactive entheogenic compound extracted from the root bark of a West African shrub known as Tabernanthe iboga. ... Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as electroshock or ECT, is a controversial type of psychiatric shock therapy involving the induction of an artificial seizure in a patient by passing electricity through the brain. ... Look up Depression on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Depression may refer to one of the following: Clinical depression, a medical condition which includes decreased interest in pleasurable activities Depression (mood), an everyday term for a sad mood Depression (geology), a sunken or depressed geological formation Depression (economics) is a more...

Journalist Timothy Crouse wrote a memoir called “The Boys on the Bus” that critically analyzes the coverage of the '72 presidential campaign, and is often a standard text in university journalism courses. In the book, 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. Son of Russel Crouse and brother of Lindsay Crouse, Timothy Crouse is the author of The Boys on the Bus, a book about the journalists who covered the 1972 US presidential campaign. ... Pack Journalism is an often derogatory term used to describe the tendency of news reporting to become homogeneous when a group of reporters covering the same topic are required to spend large amounts of time together. ...