Not politics as usual

1960
LBJ vs JFK vs Nixon
The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies
by David Pietrusza
Union Square Press
ISBN 978-1-4027-6114-0
523 pp with illustrations
$24.95 Hardcover

Ask anyone, and they will tell you politics is a very dirty game, a world where shady backroom deals are made and lives change in the wink of an eye.

David Pietrusza takes us into that world, a world where money truly talks, and in the case of Joe Kennedy, money which also greased a lot of palms, paid off the Mob, and vaulted his son into becoming the nation's first Catholic president. This is politics, boiled down to it's most base elements, and the author pulls no punches and spares no feelings when he get's down to the nitty gritty of the candidates themselves as the person behind the mask. And in the case of Nixon, several different masks, each one uglier than the one before.

This book opened my eyes and changed a few impressions I had of people that I've read up on in other biographies such as Bobby Kennedy, President Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. It also gave me a glimpse into some other famous names that I wasn't familiar with such as Barry Goldwater, Hubert Humphrey, and Nelson Rockefeller, but after reading about them, the way they played the game and the down and dirty nature of their true values and reasons to want to be president, I was left with a feeling that Harry Truman was right when he said "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog!" After I finished this book, I wouldn't want any of these men as my friends, let alone my enemies.

So for those of you who like sheer, nasty down and dirty soap opera dramatics, this is one hell of a ride! It starts off fast and doesn't stop until the end. I could easily say it's made the usual dry political biography one that makes me now want to read up some more on some of the men and women who make up the modern political spectrum.