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DECEMBER 29, 2003
Candid Candidates ONE-CAR CARAVAN On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In By Walter Shapiro PublicAffairs -- 220pp -- $25 In December, 2002, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry met with a group of deep-pocketed potential donors to his Presidential campaign. The early presumptive front-runner told the Wall Street crowd that Democrats needed to avoid a fratricidal primary season if they were to defeat George W. Bush. So, he said, contributors early on should coalesce around a candidate -- himself -- and "squeeze out everyone else." The episode, which is recounted in USA Today columnist Walter Shapiro's witty and insightful One-Car Caravan: On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In, now seems like ancient history. The Web-fueled movement that has propelled former Vermont Governor Howard Dean to the front of the pack had yet to develop. But Shapiro, one of the country's best political writers, believes there's much to be learned from the "invisible primary" period of 2002 and early 2003, the focus of his book, because the candidates were much more accessible and they spoke more candidly. The book's fly-on-the-wall anecdotes will delight the politically obsessed, although general readers may be less fascinated by accounts of how candidates worked New Hampshire living rooms. Shapiro was present at the creation of some campaigns. For instance, he sat at North Carolina Senator John Edwards' kitchen table as his wife, Elizabeth, mused over the pros and cons of a Presidential bid. "It's his decision to make," she tells the author, but she judges her husband as having the best chance of unseating Bush. The others, of course, felt the same way about their bids: Shapiro profiles all of them, with the exception of late-entering General Wesley Clark and former Illinois Senator Carol Mosely Braun, who has no campaign to speak of. One of the book's most interesting vignettes casts doubt on Dean's veracity: Back in 2002, Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe told each candidate that after the March primaries, one of them should have sufficient support to cinch the nomination -- and everyone else should get out. Dean refused to go along, saying he would press on until the bitter end. Shapiro tape-recorded Dean's recitation of this encounter. Now, Dean denies it ever happened. Shapiro says this leaves him feeling "unsettled about the candidate I probably agree with the most." Such insights make One-Car Caravan a journey well worth taking.  By Alexandra Starr Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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