Campaign ’72: The Managers Speak

by Ernest R. May (Editor), Janet Fraser (Editor)

In January 1973, for the first time in American history, principal participants in a major election met to discuss the science and the art of campaign the planning, calculation, contrivance, miscalculation, and mischance that determine what the electorate sees. Here campaign managers, pollsters, and journalists met to compare notes on their techniques and tactics and on their successes and failures as they reviewed the events of the primaries and the poor decisions made in the face of complex state primary laws; the decline of Muskie and the rise of McGovern; the significance of issues versus Nixon's image; the effects of party reform on the Democratic convention; the credentials fights; the twists of strategy during the final months of the campaign; the way the press covered the campaign and how reporters were treated by the various staffs; the lessons for 1976 drawn by reporters and campaign people. The straightforward exchanges took place at the Harvard Conference on Campaign Decision-Making. Eighteen key people participated, including those in the campaigns of Nixon, McGovern, Wallace, Muskie, Humphrey, Jackson, and McCloskey. Four political correspondents--David Broder, James Naughton, Al Otten, and James Perry--expertly guided the conversation, probing for additional insights. The transcript of the conference--oral history at its best--has been carefully edited and makes absorbing reading. Included are brief sketches of the participants, a chronology of major events of the campaign, tables of campaign statistics, and a full index.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Ernest Richard May was an American historian of international relations whose 14 published books include analyses of American involvement in World War I and the causes of the fall of France during World War II. His 1997 book The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis became the primary sources of the 2000 film Thirteen Days that viewed the crisis from the perspective of American political leaders. He served on the 9/11 Commission and highlighted the failures of the government intelligence agencies. May taught full time on the faculty of Harvard University for 55 years, until his death.