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Document:LP News 1973 November-December 17: Difference between revisions
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Document:LP News 1973 November-December 17 (view source)
Revision as of 18:17, 20 December 2021
, 20 December 2021→'Making of the President' is a bore, disappoint
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=='Making of the President' is a bore, disappoint== | =='Making of the President' is a bore, disappoint== | ||
Theodore H. White's Making of the President series has come to be regarded as "the" authoritative chronicling of Presidential Elections; his skillful blending of scholarly style and personal insight, combined with an abundance of "you are there" detail, has proven well-nigh irresistible to connoiseurs and the general public alike. Unfortunately, the 1972 volume has proved to be a disappointment. | |||
Its greatest shortcoming is that it is boring; this is not entirely White's fault, of course--the 1972 Election was in itself boring. And White realizes this, so he devotes much of his book to rambling ponitifications on "bacikground" material about the state of American Society. | |||
Yet, amazingly, despite a paucity of interesting material about the major candidates, he devotes no space to a discussion of minority-party candidates (Hospers is mentioned once, briefly, in a footnote; the others are ignored completely, except for a listing in a vote-total table). | |||
Minority candidates drew about 3% of the total vote, in states where they were on the ballot; yet White never mentions them. this seems odd, in view of the fact that Shirley Chisholm is mentioned several times. Surely, Schmitz, Spock, Hospers, Jenness et. al. said something of interest, and/or represented significant currents in American politics. | |||
Perhaps White's oversight was not intentional, but it is disappointing nonetheless. Let us hope that his 1976 chronicle is more perceptive. | |||
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=POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE= | =POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE= | ||