Portrait of an Election: The 1980 Presidential Campaign

by Elizabeth Drew

Portrait of an The 1980 Presidential Campaign by Drew, Elizabeth

Genres: History, Politics

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Reuben Herfindahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this in a random Little Free Library a little bit ago.

I enjoyed the heck out of it.

It does a really good job of recounting the campaign in 1980, which is the last campaign I was too young to have any memories of (I would have been 6 at the time). The chapters are all written in real time chronologically, and so the outcome of one chapter is not foreshadowed by the actual outcome of the primary or the general.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that both the Carter and the Reagan campaigns shared internal briefing documents in full with the author after the election was done and they are published in mostly full in the afterwards.

Anyway, great read and I'd recommend it to any serious political geeks.

[Gabriel Conroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting account of the 1980 presidential election published within a year of [SPOILER ALERT!:] Ronald Reagan's victory. In fact, each of the chapters comes from articles that Elizabeth Drew wrote for the New Yorker. Without this book, one would have to wade through about 10 issues of that magazine's inane cartoons and NPR-style commentaries on life in select neighborhoods in Manhattan. For this alone, Drew's book performs a valuable service.

Like most "histories" written by journalists, its writing is accessible to laypersons and convoluted beyond belief. The book, under the hand of a reader-friendly editor, might have been about 1/3 shorter. With a little more editing, the reader (i.e., me) might have been spared having to reinterpret two consecutive pages that disclose three mutually exclusive outcomes of the Democratic caucus in Iowa in 1979. With even more editing, Drew might even have cut down on the number of elliptical sentences. Useful stylistic devices, but annoying after a while.

Sometimes Drew gives us the gosh-darn-it-aren't-politicians-funny-and-venal anecdotes. For example, she notes that so and so elected official, when told the public doesn't know his vision, asks "what is my vision." Humorous, maybe. But it's hard to believe that a grizzled political reporter like Drew is at all surprised by such revelations. It's apparently meant as candy for the occasional unsophisticated non-Manhattanite who picks up the New Yorker on their way to their town's only Woolworth's to get a chocolate soda and do some (appropriately chaperoned) courtin'.

At one point toward the end of the book, Drew writes that the Iran hostage crisis dominated nearly every aspect of the 1980 election. Anyone familiar with that election would probably agree. However, anyone whose only exposure to that election was the first 300 pages or so of Drew's book might be surprised by this revelation. Sure, Drew discusses the crisis--devoting at least 10 pages to it--in earlier chapters, but the crisis itself fades from view in most of her coverage of campaign strategy.

This book, however, does work as a primary source for those who'd like inside information on the way the three campaigns were run (John Anderson was Jimmy Carter's H. Ross Perot, who was Bush Sr.'s Ralph Nader). It has an appendix of interesting internal memos of the Reagan and Carter campaigns. It's "just like being there."

Okay, I didn't read the memos, but I'm sure they were interesting.

[Dominic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Thoroughly enjoyed it.