Party Monsters

Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid
By Joe Klein
Doubleday, 256 pp., $23.95

When they write Joe Klein's obituary, there will be no way to keep the title ''Primary Colors" out of the first paragraph. That book, which Klein wrote under the pseudonym ''Anonymous," was a thinly veiled comedic romp based on the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. When all signs began to point to Klein as the author, he vehemently denied it, lying to the world, including his colleagues at Newsweek. The book, and later the movie based on it starring John Travolta as Bill Clinton, made Klein a rich man. However, it also ripped the veneer of honesty from his reputation.

Many in the political reporting trade doubted Klein ever would have depicted the Clinton insiders as the band of trademark loonies in ''Primary Colors" if he had had to put his name on the book. Klein was bitter about the reaction of his colleagues, saying journalism is a ''sick profession."

Now comes ''Politics Lost," Klein's reminiscences from covering eight presidential campaigns. Though he once tried to swear off this business, ''they don't have 12-step programs for political junkies," he says. If they did, Klein would be a suitable case for treatment.

This is a deeply cynical book. Take, for instance, his description of the two political parties. Democrats have had their spiritual vigor sapped by vehement secularism, their soggy internationalism spineless in the face of a dangerous world. Their liberal wing has an automatic disdain for the use of force, an attitude that is not only weak but also unpatriotic.

The Republicans, who come off a little better, are witlessly radical, fiscally irresponsible at home, intemperate and bullying abroad, and purveyors of an intrusive religiosity that is shockingly intolerant of science or reason.

The cause for this Klein posits as a ''pollster-consultant industrial complex," the addiction of politicians to the synthetic, market-tested language peddled by political consultants leading to a political culture that has become overly cautious, mechanistic, and bland.

What we miss in American politics today is what he calls ''Turnip Day moments," a metaphor drawn from Harry Truman in 1948. In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination on July 26, which he said was Turnip Day in Missouri, Truman announced he was calling the Republican ''do nothing" Congress back into special session. These moments are the intermittent bolts of unmassaged oratory, the spontaneity, the body language that give real insight to those who would lead us.

Al Gore's Turnip Day moment was his platform smooch of Tipper, a low-information signal that Gore was not a robot. Ross Perot was a ''one-man turnip festival." George H.W. Bush was capable only of ''tiny turnipy signals." One of Bill Clinton's turnip moments was when he pulled a pen from his pocket during a State of the Union speech and threatened to veto any health care bill that didn't meet Hillary's standards. It backfired badly, and Klein ascribes the whole idea to ''the president's byzantine relationship with the First Lady." The turnip metaphor is driven so far into the ground it becomes a parsnip.

''Politics Lost" is organized chronologically into chapters about the more famous political consultants, the candidates they manage to corrupt, and the strategies and tactics they employ to do so. Many of these are old stories, well known to political junkies, probably not very interesting to the rest of the world.

Klein is very respectful of the Bushes, father and son. George Sr. can't be blamed for the tawdry tactics of 1988, the author says, because ''he delegated politics to Lee Atwater; he was too decent a man for the hugger-mugger." When John McCain demolished George W. in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, young Bush kept his cool and headed for South Carolina. There McCain found himself depicted as having snakes in his head from the brainwashing he received during his six years as a prisoner of war, his wife was branded a drug addict, and he faced rumors he had fathered a mixed-race child. When he confronted Bush about this clandestine demolition job, McCain was told, ''It's just politics, John." The real lesson in all this is when a Bush gets cornered in a political campaign, politics heads for the gutter. In the end, it is the candidate's responsibility, not the consultant's.

Along the way, Klein holds back nothing in his score settling and disdain for those he encountered in the eight campaigns.

If you're looking for opinionated, gossipy dish about the consultants and the candidates, this book is for you. These are Klein's characterizations, not mine. Michael Dukakis, who hailed from the National Public Radio wing of his party, made the gratuitously lunkheaded gesture of admitting he was a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Bill Clinton was a womanizer of desperately bad taste. John Kerry was a man of regal negligence, all dignity and no details.

Klein saves his deepest disdain for the American voter. Issues mean nothing. ''There wasn't a single, breathing swing voter in the fifty United States who would make his or her presidential decision on the basis of which candidate had the better prescription-drug plan for the elderly," he contends. The voters make up their minds more simply.

So it is that in Klein's analysis the 2004 presidential election came down to the public response to two phrases. Bush: ''You may not always agree with me but you'll always know where I stand." Kerry: ''I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it." To Klein, it is all just that simple.

Ken Bode is the Distinguished Pulliam Professor of Journalism at DePauw University.