Falling Up

by Strother, Raymond D.

• ISBN13: 9780807130605
• ISBN10: 0807130605
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-04-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

This brash and rollicking autobiography is a potent primer of the rough-and-tumble world of political consulting by one of its founding fathers and preeminent experts. Beneath the white-hot glare of the modern media-sphere where "old pol," shake-every-hand campaigns have given way to electronic image making and speed-of-light smear tactics, Ray Strother rolls cheerily along. A cross between a patriotic redneck raconteur and a TV-savvy renaissance man, Strother is unafraid to name names and refuses to mince words in tales of what he calls "the beauty and gore" of American politics. Strother begins with his blue-collar Democratic upbringing in the oil-refining small town of Port Arthur, Texas, in the forties and fifties. He follows with the crash course in Louisiana politics and corruption he received following graduate school. His vivid evocation of larger-than-life characters such as Jimmie Davis and Russell Long prefigures politics as an arena for the cult of personality that later bloomed -- for better and worse -- with the pervasion of TV. Strother's mastery of the subtleties of political commercials counterpoints his compelling entry into the big-time senatorial and congressional races of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Author Biography

Raymond D. Strother is president of Strother, Duffy, Strother and lives in Washington, D.C., and in Montana

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Prologue	p. 1
Growing Up in Texas	p. 14
"Get the Hell Out of Here. You Have a Future"	p. 40
The Louisiana Years	p. 45
A Short Sheriff and a Long Pistol	p. 51
The First Lessons	p. 55
Light Bulbs and Bookmarks	p. 66
Sunshine Rains on Me	p. 70
James Carville and Iceberg Lettuce	p. 85
The Awakening	p. 94
Season of Discontent	p. 102
The Kingfish Lends a Hand	p. 117
What Is It You Do, Sir?	p. 130
I Know Lloyd Bentsen, and He Is a Friend of Mine	p. 141
A Pretty Woman with a Smudge on Her Cheek	p. 155
The Clock Ticks	p. 165
The Wise Ones Stumble Again	p. 172
Bill, Hillary, Al, and the Gang	p. 206
Buddy Roemer and the Silver Bullet	p. 222
Where Dreams Go When They Die	p. 234
Marriage on the Rocks, Up with a Twist	p. 246
Kicking Ass and Taking Names	p. 263
Buying Friends and Influencing People	p. 268
Blue Chips, Dwarfs, and Survival	p. 274
The Sea Creatures Crawl to the Shore	p. 282
The Chill Winds of September	p. 288
Index	p. 297
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