The Carnival Campaign

The Carnival Campaign tells the fascinating story of the pivotal 1840 presidential campaign of General William Henry Harrison and John Tyler—“Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Pulitzer Prize–nominated former Wall Street Journal reporter Ronald Shafer relates in a colorful, entertaining style how the campaign marked a series of “firsts” that changed presidential politicking forever: the first presidential campaign as mass entertainment; the first “image campaign,” in which strategists portrayed Harrison as a poor man living in a log cabin sipping alcoholic hard cider (in fact, he lived in a brick mansion and drank only sweet cider); the first time big money was inserted into a presidential campaign; the first time women could openly participate; and more. Some of history's most fascinating figures pass through this story, including Susan B. Anthony, Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, Thaddeus Stevens, and Walt Whitman. While today's electorate has come to view circus-like, big-money campaigns that emphasize style and image over substance as a matter of course, The Carnival Campaign shows voters how it all began.

Ronald G. Shafer was an editor, reporter, and columnist at the Wall Street Journal for 38 years in Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, DC, where he was the political features editor. In 1990 he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism. He has also contributed to People, Sports Illustrated, Reader’s Digest and the Washington Post. His previous books include When the Dodgers Were Bridegrooms.


Advance Praise for The Carnival Campaign

“Ron Shafer re-creates a precursor to the 2016 presidential campaign in stunning detail that makes for delightful reading. The Carnival Campaign is a masterpiece of historical reportage.”—Ronald Kessler, author of The First Family Detail, In the President’s Secret Service, and The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded

“Shafer argues with clarity and a sly sense of humor that William Henry Harrison's fraudulent ‘log cabin and hard cider’ presidential campaign in 1840 (he was born in luxury and drank Madeira) set the tone for all the image-first campaigns that followed.” —James M. Perry, former chief political correspondent for the Wall Street Journal