Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin into a Global Business

by James Harding

Alpha Dogs is the story of the men from an enormously influential campaign business called Sawyer Miller who served as backroom strategists on every presidential contest from Richard Nixon’s to George W. Bush’s. David Sawyer was a New England aristocrat with dreams of a career as a filmmaker; Scott Miller, the son of an Ohio shoe salesman, had a knack for copywriting. Unlikely partners, they became a political powerhouse, directing democratic revolutions from the Philippines to Chile, steering a dozen presidents and prime ministers into office, and instilling the campaign ethic in corporate giants from Coca-Cola to Apple. Long after the firm had broken up and sold out, its alumni had moved into the White House, to dozens of foreign countries, and into the offices of America’s blue-chip chief executives. The men of Sawyer Miller were the Manhattan Project of spin a small but extraordinary group who invented an American-style political campaigning and exported it around the world. In this lively and engaging narrative, James Harding tells the story of a few men whose political savvy, entrepreneurial drive, and sheer greed would alter the landscape of global politics. It is a story full of office intrigue, fierce rivalries, and disastrous miscalculations. And it is the tale of how world politics became American, and how American business became political.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

272 pages, Hardcover

First published May 13, 2008

Reviews

[Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As somebody who has worked in politics, has met some of the people in this book, interviewed for work with Sawyer-Miller, and had a toehold in international politics -- this book is an excellent and fair treatment of international political consulting and especially the ethical dilemmas of people who work in it, especially of the idealism vs. financial solvency sort. Harding does an excellent job of explaining how and why "American style political consulting" has come to be so commonplace and in exploding some of the popular misconceptions people, Americans and foreigners alike, have about the role of American political advisers both at home and abroad. It helps that he's a Brit, although some of his over-the-top cheerleading for things American can be wince inducing.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

FASCINATING!

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Indeed. Because ”spin” and ”political spin” were unknown before, and it is a dim witted journalist who single-handedly discovered the spiel. Before these guys, politicians were gentle flowers idling on the benches of the Parliament. Oh, look, the author was part of the big British propaganda machine.