The Campaign: Rudy Giuliani, Ruth Messinger, Al Sharpton, and the Race to Be Mayor of New York City
- Book Review,
by Evan Mandery, Evan J. Mandery
Amazon.com
Evan J. Mandery proves that it's possible to write an interesting book about a losing political campaign. And Mandery--who served as research director to Ruth Messinger's failed bid to unseat New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1997--isn't even describing a close race. This one was a blowout, with the Republican Giuliani using his crime-fighting success to flatten a liberal opponent. The book is presented as a diary, covering roughly 10 months, through Messinger's early announcements, the Democratic primary, and finally the general election. Mandery is a political neophyte--he quit his job as a lawyer to work for Messinger on his first (and probably last) campaign. His newcomer status makes him occasionally naive (he's not sure what to do his first day at work), but also allows him to offer a fresh and wry look at the life of political professionals. The Campaign has plenty of humor, with off-the-wall observations on nearly every page, such as Mandery's anecdote about Giuliani drinking a celery-flavored soda. (A handful of illustrations by R.J. Matson, one of America's best political cartoonists, are also a treat.) The book's greatest strength, however, is the way it uncovers the gritty dynamics of a political campaign, or at least one waged in the strange world of New York City. --John J. Miller
From Publishers Weekly
From the trenches of urban political warfare comes this dispatch from Mandery, a Manhattan attorney who was research director for Democrat Ruth Messinger's unsuccessful 1997 mayoral campaign against incumbent Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. His day-by-day log of his nine-month stint will interest all readers, including non-New Yorkers, concerned with the degeneration of politics into spin over substance. For Mandery, the campaign's galling irony was that Giuliani, who cut public school budgets, spent the largest portion of his advertising dollars portraying himself as a friend of education, while Messinger, an outspoken liberal, was massaged by her handlers (including the author) into a centrist. Mandery makes his personal biases clear: Messinger, in his eyes, is principled, brilliant, appealingly quirky and compassionate, while Giuliani is arrogant, egotistical, bullying, mean-spirited, "an effective leader with bad priorities." Yet Mandery, whose job it was to generate issues and to dig up dirt on opponents, admits that Messinger failed to articulate what she'd do if elected. Also, his own gaffes (like putting Messinger on Howard Stern's radio show) justify the conventional appraisal of Messinger's campaign as inept. Enlivened by nimble line drawings and political cartoons, this incisive journal offers a candid and often darkly funny picture of the uneasy cohabitation of idealism and cynicism that defines political life. (Dec.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Mandery, several years out of Harvard Law School, was research director on Manhattan borough president Ruth Messenger's campaign for New York mayor. The fact that Mandery had no experience directing research (and had previously volunteered in a single election effort) was no obstacle to his hiring, but his relative innocence lends an air of charming befuddlement ("Why are these people doing these strange things?") to his narrative of the campaign. The 1997 mayoral race was a lively one: Rudy Giuliani seeking a second term (and preparing--who knew?--for Hillary in 2000); Messenger, with a long track record of public service, the only woman in the race; Rev. Al Sharpton, running a sometimes noisy but quite serious primary campaign; and Sal Albanese, a populist local politician, who represented the Independence (Reform) Party in the general election after he lost the primary. Mandery writes well, explaining polls and positioning (and why top consultants have contempt for traditional political field work). A terrific book for political junkies and for folks who subscribe to New York magazine. Mary Carroll
From Kirkus Reviews
A ground-level chronicle of the Ruth Messinger campaign in the New York City mayoral race of 1997. Mandery, a Manhattan attorney, is a newcomer to the often unlovely world of local politics. Despite ample opportunities to be appalled, however, he successfully avoids the role of an innocent recoiling from the corruption of democracy and focuses on reporting daily events. What he reveals is interesting, if not overly surprising. Quickly he learns that a campaign is not simply an extension of the candidate; the organization Mandery sees around him is a bureaucracy filled with people who try to affect decisions based upon their own parochial view of the political world rather than a seamless representation of one person. Moreover, the need (actual, not just perceived) to hire a political professional to run the campaign means the key political strategist is almost certainly someone with few if any ties to the candidate and little concern with issues. Mandery considers the results laughable. The most striking example comes from Messingers opponent, Rudy Giuliani, a man who cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the public schools. . . [then] spent a plurality of his advertising dollars portraying himself as a friend of public education.'' Yet Mandery admits his own candidate embraced no less astonishing positions. His conclusion in the aftermath of the election reflects both the volumes weakness and its strength: If there is a lesson to be learned . . . it is that it is not easy to draw meaningful lessons from campaigns. True, thats not a deeply satisfying bit of wisdom, but Manderys insight into the barely controlled chaos of electoral politics is the reason to read him; abstracting from day-to-day events might imply a greater level of coherence than the experience here warrants. Mandery successfully recreates the feeling of being in a campaign rather than providing a rational explanation of one. (12 illus., not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
New York Daily News
"[The book has] juicy revelations which speak volumes about how the political game is played in New York."
Book Description
A behind-the-scenes look at a modern political campaign, examining how candidates go about the difficult and important business of defining themselves in the television era. Evan Mandery, research director on Ruth Messinger's doomed challenge to Mayor Rudy Giuliani, offers a behind-the-scenes look at political campaigns in the television era. A day-to-day account of the 1997 New York City mayoral race, it takes us to the real battlegrounds of modern politics: polls, focus groups, and television editing studios. With Mandery as our guide, we watch first-hand as political consultants conceive of the ideal candidate and then attempt to fit their client into that ideal, no matter how uncomfortably. The stars of the story are memorable: Rudy Giuliani, popping his eyes and tweaking the truth; Al Sharpton, the colorful preacher and rising political force; and Ruth Messinger herself, torn between her populist political upbringing and the modern political world where money dominates over all other concerns. Sometimes cynical, often mirthful, and always honest, The Campaign will forever change your view of political campaigns.
About the Author
Evan Mandery attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was research director on Ruth Messinger's 1997 mayoral campaign. He currently lives in Manhattan, where he is an attorney.
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