a genuinely weird campaign

[excerpts / Hunter Thompson book on 1972 presidential campaign]------------------ BRUCKNER'S ARTICLE WAS FOCUSED on the mood of Young Blacks, but unless you were reading very closely, the distinction was easy to miss.  Because the mood among Young Whites is not much different -- despite a lot of well-financed publicity about the potentially massive "youth vote."

These are the 25 million or so new voters between 18 and 25 -- going, maybe, to the polls for the first time -- who supposedly hold the fate of the nation in the palms of their eager young hands.  According to the people who claim to speak for it, this "youth vote" has the power to zap Nixon out of office with a flick of its wrist.  Hubert Humphrey lost in '68 by 499,704 votes -- a miniscule percentage of what the so-called "youth vote" could turn out in 1972.

But there are not many people in Washington who take this notion of the "youth vote" very seriously.  Not even the candidates.  The thinking here is that the young people who vote for the first time in '72 will split more or less along the same old lines as their parents, and that the addition of 25 million new (potential) voters means just another sudden mass that will have to be absorbed into the same old patterns . . . just another big wave of new immigrants who don't know the score yet, but who will learn it soon enough, so why worry?

...Among the half-dozen high-powered organizations in Washington who claim to speak for the "youth vote," the only one with any real muscle at this point is the National Association of Student Governments, which recently -- after putting together an "Emergency Conference for New Voters" in Chicago last month -- brought its leadership back to D.C. and called a press conference in the Old Senate office building to announce the formation of a "National Youth Caucus."...

I came in about ten minutes late, and when question time came around I asked the same one I'd asked Allard Lowenstein at a similar press conference in Chicago:  Would the Youth Caucus support Hubert Humphrey if he won the Democratic nomination?

Lowenstein had refused to answer that question in Chicago, saying, "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it."  But in Washington Draper said "Yes," the Youth Vote could get behind Hubert if he said the right things -- "if he takes the right positions."...

[a space in the text]
The only people who seem genuinely interested in the '72 elections are the actual participants -- the various candidates, their paid staff people, the thousands of journalists, cameramen & other media-connected hustlers who will spend most of this year humping the campaign along . . . and of course all the sponsors, called "fat cats" in the language of Now-Politics, who stand to gain hugely for at least the next four years if they can muscle their man down the homestretch just a hair ahead of the others.

The fat-cat action is still one of the most dramatic aspects of a presidential campaign, but even in this colorful area the tension is leaking away -- primarily because most of the really serious fat cats figured out, a few years back, that they could beat the whole rap -- along with the onus of going down the tube with some desperate loser -- by "helping" two candidates, instead of just one.

A good example of this, in 1972, will probably be Mrs. Rella Factor -- ex-wife of "Jake the Barber" and the largest single contributor to Hubert Humphrey's campaign in '68.  She didn't get a hell of a lot of return for her investment last time around.  But this year, using the new method, she can buy the total friendship of two, three, or perhaps even four presidential candidates, for the same price . . . by splitting up the nut, as discreetly as possible, between Hubert, Nixon, and maybe -- just for the natural randy hell of it -- a chunk to Gene McCarthy, who appears to be cranking up a genuinely weird campaign this time.------------------ [end excerpt]

====================
Rock on, gold dust woman --
Take your silver spoon
And dig your grave

Heartless challenge
Pick your path,
and I'll pray

Wake up in the morning
See your sunrise -- loves -- to go down.
Lousy lovers
pick their prey but they
never
cry out loud

Well did she make you cry?
Make you break down?
Shatter your illusions of love?

And is it over now?
Do you know how...
to pick up the pieces and go home?

Rock on, ancient queen
Follow those who
Pale

in your shadow...

Rulers make bad lovers
You better put your kingdom up for sale...

Did she make you cry?
Make you break down?
Shatter your illusions of love?
And is it over now?
Do you know how
-- pick up the pieces and go home

Well did she make you cry?
Make you break down?
Shatter your illusions of love-now tell me is it over now?
Do you know how
to pick up the pieces and go home?

go home,

and go ho-o-o-me...
Pale -- shadow -- of a woman...
Ooh --

black

Widow...

Pale

shadow

of a dragon...

gold --

dust --

woman.

Mm, pale shadow of a woman
Mm, black widow
Mm, pale --

shadow,

she's a dragon.

Gold.  Dust.  Woman

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
{book excerpts from Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson.  Copyright, 1973.  San Francisco, CA.  Straight Arrow Books}
{song:  "Gold Dust Woman" - written by Stevie Nicks - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album, 1977.}

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