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Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars?: The Trivial Pursuit of the Presidency 1988
Describes the many bad moves and questionable strategies made by Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, and other major contenders in the presidential race
478 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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53 people want to read
About the author
Jack W. Germond
8 books5 followersJack Germond was a famous political columnist. He was most well known for his work at The Baltimore Sun, but he was involved in everything from newspapers to television. For a while, he regularly appeared on The McLaughlin Group.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 9, 2019
Similar to the Theo. White series. This was really a great book covering the memorable 1988 election cycle. Great insight and analysis on the candidates, the key moments like the Gary Hart scandal, the debates, the strategies and state by state primary cycle. Only quibble I had was with the dry/boring stuff on some of the state primary stuff..especially the Michigan chapter. But overall great. I’m gonna look for more by these two dudes.
March 15, 2010
This account of the 1988 presidential election is a good survey, covering the key factors of the race in a light, readable voice. Written by newspaper reporters in 1989, however, it was apparently intended to speak to contemporary readers able to parse references to touchstone moments in the campaign without further explication. It makes passing references to "the Hyundai ad," for example, without explaining that this was an ad on foreign trade barriers that Gephardt used to gain ground in Iowa. "Hyundai ad" doesn't even appear in the index. It's a good book, highly informative, but readers hoping for a primer on the race might benefit from supplementary Googling.
January 19, 2016
Fantastic book about one of the most absurd presidential elections I've ever seen. Flags and the pledge of allegiance . . . who gives a s***?????? Shows how willing we Americans are to buy the most stupid crap.
August 21, 2008
This book and his 92 book are worth reading for political junkies. The 1984 one not so much.
September 1, 2025
Good overview of the 1988 election that complements Cramer's What It Takes very well. Whereas Cramer focused intensely on the candidates' biographies, personalities, and primary campaigns, it stopped short of really getting into the general election, while Witcover and Germond cover the entire campaign, albeit with less depth. Some takeaways:
1. It's interesting to read about the Ailes/Atwater/Baker strategy of covering up Bush's vulnerabilities by incessant negative attacks on Dukakis, which has arguably continued with modern Republican candidates.
2. It's also frustrating to see Dukakis and Harris falling into the same trap 36 years apart: If you can't define yourself to the voters fast enough, your opponent will do it for you, and it won't be easy to overcome.
3. I chuckled at how much the authors hated Gore and his ever changing personality based on where he was campaigning; he's a minor player here but of course becomes VP in four years and wins the party nomination in 12.
4. It's been discussed many times before, but it's disheartening how little voters care about the candidates' personal lives anymore. The authors describe how Hart's alleged womanizing and Biden's plagiarism sunk their campaigns, but those issues would roll like water off a duck's back in the modern political environment.
1. It's interesting to read about the Ailes/Atwater/Baker strategy of covering up Bush's vulnerabilities by incessant negative attacks on Dukakis, which has arguably continued with modern Republican candidates.
2. It's also frustrating to see Dukakis and Harris falling into the same trap 36 years apart: If you can't define yourself to the voters fast enough, your opponent will do it for you, and it won't be easy to overcome.
3. I chuckled at how much the authors hated Gore and his ever changing personality based on where he was campaigning; he's a minor player here but of course becomes VP in four years and wins the party nomination in 12.
4. It's been discussed many times before, but it's disheartening how little voters care about the candidates' personal lives anymore. The authors describe how Hart's alleged womanizing and Biden's plagiarism sunk their campaigns, but those issues would roll like water off a duck's back in the modern political environment.
February 13, 2026
It was nasty, everyone saw it. While it may feel like presidential elections in the United States have gotten quite vicious in the last few years, this is not particularly a "new" phenomenon. In 1988, the United States witnessed one of the nastiest and most negative in recent US memory at the time. George H.W. Bush, while campaigning on a "kinder, gentler nation" relentlessly attacked his opponent, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, on his so-called "liberal & unpatriotic" creditionals. The result was one of the last "landslides" in US electoral history.
This is the third book by Witcover & Germond covering US elections, you can feel the sickening sense of the campaign in their writing. The two are not shy about their lament over the negativity of the campaign, and how campaigns are waged. Its not about issues, but soundbites. The pair recoil from the media-focused sense of politics.
Despite this, they still wrote an accurate journalistic account of the race, and what a race. The 1988 election saw the fallout from the Iran-Contra affair, the dramatic falls of Gary Hart & Joe Biden, the emergence of the evangelical voter under Pat Robertson, the near-brush of Jesse Jackson, and much more. Their account is readable and is the standard in the accounts of the 1988 campaign.
This is the third book by Witcover & Germond covering US elections, you can feel the sickening sense of the campaign in their writing. The two are not shy about their lament over the negativity of the campaign, and how campaigns are waged. Its not about issues, but soundbites. The pair recoil from the media-focused sense of politics.
Despite this, they still wrote an accurate journalistic account of the race, and what a race. The 1988 election saw the fallout from the Iran-Contra affair, the dramatic falls of Gary Hart & Joe Biden, the emergence of the evangelical voter under Pat Robertson, the near-brush of Jesse Jackson, and much more. Their account is readable and is the standard in the accounts of the 1988 campaign.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews