In one of its most famous scenes, a middle-aged political strategist whips out his penis at campaign headquarters in an attempt to lure young press aide to his hotel room. And yet, there are so few credible novels about political campaigns that Primary Colors, for all its imperfections, is still one of the best we have. It begins as a cynical – if effective – satire, then goes off the rails when it sinks into farce and axe-grinding. Like most campaigns, Primary Colors is messy. “Two-thirds of what we do is reprehensible,” Jack Stanton says, while making clear that politicians will go on doing that reprehensible two-thirds because they think it justifies the good one-third. Primary Colors is about the cost of political leadership in America and, perhaps, anywhere. And Washington insiders had little trouble figuring out who might have inspired characters like first lady Susan Stanton (Hillary Clinton), campaign aide Henry Burton (George Stephanopoulos) and strategist Richard Jemmons (James Carville).īut Klein aims to do more than satirize the players in the 1992 Democratic primaries. Primary Colors sends up the first presidential campaign of Jack Stanton, a Southern governor and stand-in for Bill Clinton. 1 bestseller is interesting for more than identity of its author, eventually revealed to be the longtime Washington journalist Joe Klein. Guessing who wrote Primary Colors was a white-hot political parlor game in 1996, when the novel first appeared under the byline of “Anonymous.” But this former No. A veteran political reporter satirizes sexual harassment and more on the campaign trail
0 kommentar(er)
