Book brings RFK campaign alive

THE LAST CAMPAIGN: ROBERT F. KENNEDY AND 82 DAYS THAT INSPIRED AMERICA, by Thurston Clarke, Henry Holt, 321 pages, $25

Because the country finds itself in the middle of a presidential campaign, this interpretive history of the candidacy of Bobby Kennedy in 1968 is especially timely.

When Barack Obama declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination about a year and a half ago, he was criticized for his lack of experience, and it seemed to many analysts that he had little chance of winning.

Very few people in 1968 gave Kennedy even a slight chance. The same was true of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D. Minn., except he was almost completely unknown. Both Kennedy and McCarthy were running against an incumbent president of their own party, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon was getting closer to taking the Republican nomination.

Then Johnson responded to his detractors about the futility of the Vietnam War and announced he would not be a candidate for re-election.

It completely changed the dynamics of the campaign, although the Democratic establishment began talking about Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's vice president, as a possible successor. The only problem with that was Humphrey did not announce in time to run in any primaries. His hope hinged on getting the party bosses to support him.

Clarke's book proceeds to trace Kennedy's quixotic but lively campaign — not in every state as we have seen happen this year — but in a few selected primaries that he hoped would give him a leg up on delegates to the convention. So Kennedy campaigned relentlessly, often changing his tactics based on current events and reactions he received in public rallies.

Kennedy favored a people-to-people campaign, in which he constantly pressed the flesh, stood in the back of a convertible during slow motorcades where people could reach in and grab him or even pull him out of the car. Once they got him, they took souvenirs, ripping off his suit coat, tearing his shirt and pulling off his shoes.

It was important, he said, that the people knew they could touch him, and touch him they did. The whole process exhausted him, and sometimes he was so tired that his hands shook, he slurred his speech and his eyes rolled back in his head. When that happened, a large bowl of chocolate ice cream smothered in chocolate syrup saved the day.