How to Get Elected: An Anecdotal History of Mudslinging, Red-Baiting, Vote-Stealing, and Dirty Tricks in American Politics

The candidate, a southern Democrat with wide popular appeal, is engaged in a bitter struggle for the presidency with a flinty, no-nonsense Massachusetts man. Suddenly, his campaign is buffeted by rumors of extramarital affairs. Vicious editorial cartoons and juicy headlines appear in the newspapers, and his opponent's supporters begin questioning his moral fitness for the presidency. The year: 1800. The candidate: Thomas Jefferson.
How to Get Elected happily dissects that most reviled of God's creatures--the American politician. Jack Mitchell cheerfully recounts hundreds of stories of slimy, rotten, brutal, and nasty campaigns from before the founding of the Republic to the present day. While legendary political rogues like Boss Tweed, Huey Long, and Richard Nixon are given their due, Mitchell is careful not to neglect the more underhanded maneuvers of some revered statesmen with names like Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt.
For all those who bemoan the woeful state of American political campaigns today, their lack of substance, their malicious demagoguery, their relentless negativity and contempt for the truth, this book is a healthy reminder that things have always been this bad.
How to Get Elected is a delightfully cynical tour of American elections from George Washington to George Bush that demonstrates no slander is too vile, no lie too outrageous, no trick too devious in pursuit of victory at the polls.