In 1961 the journalist Theodore White published his book [b:The Making of the President 1960|549449|The Making of the President 1960|Theodore H. White|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1376578064s/549449.jpg|3282723]. As an entertaining first-hand account of the close 1960 presidential election between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, it spawned a new genre of campaign histories written by the journalists who covered them, a sort of "history 1.5." With the notable exception of Richard Ben Cramer's [b:What It Takes: The Way to the White House|380057|What It Takes The Way to the White House|Richard Ben Cramer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1439417065s/380057.jpg|2583527], however, none have ever risen to the level of White's seminal work.

Yet while White's book has long stood as the standard account of the election, it is not without its flaws. Foremost among them, as William Rorabaugh points out, is its bias: White's description of the handsome young Kennedy triumphing over the less-appealing Nixon reflected the greater amount of time that White spent with the Kennedy campaign and the greater access he was granted to it. White's account also suffers to a degree from a lack of hindsight, as political trends barely visible to White and his contemporaries stand out much more clearly with the perspective of time. This desire to revise and supersede White's book is at the heart of Rorabaugh's study, which benefits from archival and published material to offer a revised interpretation of the contest.

The book begins with an overview of presidential politics in the 1950s. This was a decade dominated by the genial figure of Dwight Eisenhower, who won easily the two elections in 1952 and 1956 and who presided over a generally prosperous nation. As his vice president, Nixon was well-positioned to inherit the Republican nomination in 1960, yet he still faced the ultimately-unrealized prospect of a challenge from the rising star of Nelson Rockefeller, who had been recently elected governor of New York. By contrast, nearly a half-dozen Democrats vied for their party's nomination, with Kennedy winning it through a combination of organization, effort, corruption, and personal appeal.

Kennedy's nomination posed a dilemma to Nixon in terms of his strategy, as he faced the question of whether to focus his appeal on African Americans in the North or white Southerners. Had the Democrats nominated one of the other contenders, such as Lyndon Johnson or Stuart Symington, Nixon would have been well positioned to appeal to the potentially decisive body of African American voters in Northern cities. Kennedy's nomination pointed the way to the latter option, yet his selection of Johnson as his vice president (a decision that, along with Rockefeller's refusal of the Republican vice-presidential nomination, Rorabaugh sees as the decisive factor in the eventual result) raised doubts as to the effectiveness of that approach. Ultimately Nixon couldn't decide which avenue to pursue, which opened up both groups to Democrats' appeals and resulted in a solid majority in the electoral college.

By challenging preconceived notions about the 1960 election, Rorabaugh's book provokes the reader into a stimulating reexamination of the contest. Yet the book suffers from a couple of notable shortcomings. For all of his claims to reinterpretation, Rorabaugh's bibliography is curiously dated, with a number of important works (most surprisingly Robert Dallek's invaluable biography of JFK, [b:An Unfinished Life|4424|An Unfinished Life John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963|Robert Dallek|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441483826s/4424.jpg|1214489]) unaccountably absent. This constrains his interpretation of the factors in the election to the short-term developments of the 1950s, leaving out any consideration of the influence of longer-term trends such as the shift of the South away from the Democrats in presidential politics (which, as Kari Frederickson demonstrated in [b:The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South|1574447|The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South 1932-1968|Kari Frederickson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388621534s/1574447.jpg|1567169], predated the decade). Because of this, while achieving its author's goal of improving on White's classic, the book falls short in its analysis of this memorable presidential election. ( )

The book presents a good overview of the 1960 election, but is poorly framed by the author's desire to contrast his work with Teddy White's classic The Making of the President. The author seems to think he's written a book that rebuts major tenets of White's book. Rorabaugh does highlight the Kennedy campaign's shenanigans and explores what was happening in the South during the campaign, neither of which White captures. On the other hand, while Rorabaugh claims his presentation of the Nixon campaign is fairer, it seems very similar to what I recall of White's presentation: Nixon's effort was a lonely one that reflected the candidate's own personality. But Rorabaugh's book falls short of White's in several ways. White was writing at the time of the election, which provides his book with an immediacy that Rorabaugh's book lacks, and White met the candidates. There's always going to be a balance between the access historians will have to the papers and memoirs of individuals who played leading roles in a campaign and those who report on the campaign firsthand; both perspectives are invaluable, and Rorabaugh makes a mistake in thinking that White's book is outdated. The other advantage of White's book is that it's beautifully written; Rorabaugh's writing is fine, but it doesn't resonate in the way that White's does. Rorabaugh's book also at times cites the thoughts of the candidates that I wish were sourced (Rockefeller's calculations, for example). If you enjoy political history, Rorabaugh's book is worth a read, but so is White's. Enjoy both of them. ( )