Volume 35, Number 13 · August 18, 1988
'New Votuhs'
By Garry Wills
The Best Congress Money Can Buy
by Philip M. Stern
Pantheon, 321 pp., $18.95
Why Americans Don't Vote
by Frances Fox Piven, by Richard A. Cloward
Pantheon, 325 pp., $19.95
Whose Votes Count?: Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights
by Abigail M. Thernstrom
Harvard University Press, 316 pp., $25.00
Character: America's Search for Leadership
by Gail Sheehy
Morrow, 303 pp., $17.95
To those who complain that our electoral campaigns are too long, a cynic might respond, 'It doesn't matter how long they are—no one is listening.' A deeper cynic could add that it would not matter even if people were listening. One is tempted toward the latter position after reading Philip Stern's grim book, The Best Congress Money Can Buy. He proves that, no matter how long and draining is the quest for votes, the wooing of money is even more prolonged and intense for politicians. An office holder has some (though less and less) surcease from electioneering; but fund-raising is a constant. The only way for a member of Congress not to be running a debt from the last campaign is to be building a fund for the next one.
Review, 4417 words
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