The New York Times Book Review for Sunday March 19 has its cover story on Kevin Phillips' new book American Theocracy. First, let me admit that I read this only in paper. It took me about five tries before I saw that the initial capital letter for the story was the illustration of the US Capitol/Washington Monument/Oil Refinery with floating money was really the initial capital.
Once I figured that out, I started feeling old. The review notes that Phillips' first book The Emerging Republican Majority was published in 1969. I remember reading that, and other of Phillips' work in a course I took on "Elections" (as an undergrad at Brown) during the fall of 1972. The midterm had a bonus question: predict the electoral vote from the outcome of the November 1972 election. I missed getting the bonus because I did not think that George McGovern would carry his home state. I did correctly give him Massachusetts (and no others). In electoral vote terms, it was a huge landslide.
With the hindsight of four decades, The Emerging Republican Majority was surprisingly accurate. While I don't generally read non-fiction for fun, I'm sorely tempted by this one.
The Phillips book also reminded me of a board game that I played the previous spring and even that fall where each player was one of the presidential hopefuls. I remember Senator Birch Bayh (Indiana) was one. Representative Morris Udall (Arizona) was another. I guess I could go look for the others, but I am afraid that it will just make me feel older.
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