Vote for Quimby -- And Quick

By Harry Miles Muheim

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0020231202
• ISBN13: 9780020231202
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The California Recall Campaign, 25 Years Ahead of its Time

The latest California farce reminded me of this (sadly, out-of-print) little gem. Spectacularly corrupt politicians, a conniving Dick Morris-style political consultant trying to slip unnoticed into New Jersey's lieutenant governorship, where state would law protect his salary from his three ex-wives' alimony demands, a stunningly beautiful political advisor who can distract and disorient the opposition simply by removing her fur coat - what more do you need? Okay, hot sex in a jetliner, there's that, too.Well, when the governor suddenly drops dead, and every nut you ever heard of decides to jump into the race, you get a refreshing antidote to all the screeds written by the Stephanopolouses and Morrises and Joe Kleins that populate the bestseller lists. Find a copy of this book, take it to the beach, and see how many of your favorite politicians you can spot.

A Quick--and Amusing--Read

This fictional account of the campaigns of a replacement Quimby, picked to run after the incumbent Quimby suddenly falls dead, and his campaign guru, who wants to both create and ride Quimby's coattails, is a fun and fast, albeit implausible, read, loosely in the tradition of (but I'd guess written before) the books on which movies like Wag the Dog are based (I can't recall the title of that specific book, which was excellent and much more detailed than this book, right now). But, like all of those good political fiction books, it plays with the line between reality, the plausible, and the impossible--all the while intending us to wonder what voters will accept in various scenarios. It is meant to entertain, and it does. Political junkies in particular will enjoy the faux characters, speeches, relationships and situations, perhaps only wishing that the author had given us even more campaign strategies, speeches, etc. I hoped to find another book by Harry Muheim so that I could continue to off-set my real life politics with his amusements, but this was his only book I found. One final note--I see from a web page that there was a candidate for President in 2000 named Quimby, which has some interesting populist parallels. Although I'm not a Simpsons viewer, I'm curious to see if there is a relationship between these--but will probably never know.