How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative
Author: Allen Raymond
Fresh out of grad school, Allen Raymond joined the GOP for one reason: rumor had it that there was big money to be made on the Republican side of the aisle.
From the earliest days of the Republican Revolution through its culmination in the second Bush White House, Raymond played a key role in helping GOP candidates twist the truth beyond recognition during a decade of crucial and bitterly fought campaigns. His career took him from the nastiest of local elections in New Jersey backwaters through runs for Congress and the Senate and right up to a top management position in a bid for the presidency itself.
It also took him to prison.
Full of wit and candor, Raymond's account offers an astonishingly frank look at the black art of campaigning and the vagaries of the Republican establishment. Unlike many "architects" of the political scene, the author takes full responsibility for his actions -- even as he never misses a trick.
A completely original tale of the disillusioning of a man who enters politics with no illusions, How to Rig an Election is a brilliant and hilarious exposй of how the contemporary political game is really played.
Kirkus Reviews
One of the Northeast GOP's top campaigners tells how he became an agent of corruption for the Republican revolution. Raymond's great-grandfather, John Thomas Underwood, founded the famous typewriter company, and while the author's share of that fortune ensured that he'd never go hungry, "family pride-hell, my own pride-ensured that I'd never be some yacht-hopping scion." After graduating from college in 1989 and spending a few desultory years in PR, he wandered into the Graduate School of Political Management. Based at the time in New York City, GSPM pushed a militaristic, Machiavellian approach to the business that was seductive to a drifter like Raymond: "I wanted to pick a fight, have a fight, and win a fight." For little apparent ideological reason, he went to work for the Republicans in New Jersey; later he ran a doomed campaign for a pro-choice GOP Philadelphia socialite with more friends than smarts. Raymond climbed the party ladder during the heady post-Gingrich days, when the very thought of compromise could infuriate the new South-centric Republican leadership, whose campaign rhetoric he derides as "pro-life, snake-handling babble." It's surprising at first to hear such criticisms from a highly placed operative in the Republican National Committee, but it becomes markedly less so once Raymond gets to the crux of the matter: how he was hung out to dry and went to jail for following orders to jam Democratic volunteers' phone lines. As he states early on, "In GOP circles in 2002 it seemed preposterous that anything you did to win an election could be considered a crime." He saw the light in prison and decided to tell the American voters about the dirty tricks he practiced, which hesees growing ever more common. "Now what are you going to do about it?" he asks. Refreshingly candid about his vindictive motives, Raymond offers a damning chronicle of political hubris.
See also: Seafood Secrets Cookbook 1 or Summer Cooking
Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Selected Writings and Speeches
Author: Johnson
Letting Lincoln's eloquent voice speak for itself, editor Michael Johnson has collected more than 180 of the writings and speeches that illuminate Lincoln’s life and career, from his youth to his entry into Republican politics and through his presidency. Classics like the Kansas-Nebraska speech, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and the Gettysburg Address, along with less familiar writings — poignant letters to individual voters, notes to generals on military strategy, and stirring public speeches — show the development of Lincoln's thought on free labor, slavery, secession, the Civil War, and emancipation. Johnson provides historical context by weaving an engaging narrative around Lincoln’s own words, making this volume the most accessible collection of Lincoln’s writings available. Also included are 14 illustrations, relevant Civil War maps, a Lincoln chronology, reading questions, a bibliography, and an index.
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