West Virginia Tough Boys: Vote Buying, Fist Fighting and a President Named JFK

An intimate peek at mountain politics and the 1960 presidential primary campaign. Rich and straightforward stories of political tomfoolery, vote-buying, and eventual victory for Jack Kennedy in West Virginia's primary, often sited as the most important and vital primary win in Senator John Kennedy's run for the Whitehouse. The book features the results of hundreds of hour's worth of interviews and discussions with several Mountain State political kingpins from yesteryear. Although they are in their twilight years, all are still living and have chosen to tell "inside information" about their participation in the presidential campaign. They disclose their vivid memories of working directly with JFK and his family, and with Hubert Humphrey. These influential Democratic factional commandoes - Claude Ellis, Raymond Chafin, Dan Dahill and others like them - tell interesting, and sometimes humorous stories, about growing up in rough and poverty stricken southern West Virginia. Then, they explain how they each grew in political power. It's mountain politics as it once was, and will never be again. West Virginia Tough Boys is chock full of exciting and startling tales of election money exchanging hands, fraud, half-pints of liquor traded for votes, and the buying of various elections.