THIS kind of thing could catch on and, if it does, nobody will be safe. At time of writing, the author of this fictionalised account of the Clinton presidential campaign of 1992 has not been identified, but whoever it was had a ringside seat - or was maybe even in the ring.
Perhaps it was a "scorp" - short for scorpion, the book's slang word for journalists, those treacherous types with a nasty sting in their "tales". It's a less evocative term than "reptile", favoured by the "Dear Bill" letters in Private Eye.
The book's jaundiced and cynical (how dare they!) view of journalists suggests it was written by a political insider or, worse still, a "scorp" who hunts with the pack but doesn't share the pack's world view.
Instead of Bill and Hillary Clinton, we have "Jack and Susan Stanton", and instead of Gennifer Flowers, who accused Clinton of extramarital naughtiness, we have "Cashmere McLeod".
The hero/narrator is called Henry Burton, a campaign worker of mixed race and mixed feelings: he is having doubts about the political process in general and Jack Stanton in particular.
Stanton's tendency to play fast and loose with the Sixth Commandment jars on his senior aide. But Stanton's "zipper problem" isn't a problem for Stanton. Burton primly describes the candidate emerging from a hotel bedroom with his latest conquest, under the gaze of his campaign staff: "He was well, he was entirely unembarrassed, as if he'd just sneezed, or scratched himself, or yawned, or done any of those semiprivate physical things normal people are willing to do in front of strangers."
Through it all, cold, aloof, ambitious Susan Stanton remains publicly loyal. Her husband, she says, could be a great man - "if he weren't such a faithless, thoughtless, disorganised, undisciplined shit".
The highs and lows - mostly the lows - of political campaigning are recounted with wit and style. Clintonologists say the description of Stanton as he engages in "meaningful listening" to a member of the public he meets on the campaign trail gets "Slick Willy" off to a T: "He was in heavy listening mode, the most aggressive listening the world has ever known: aerobic listening. It is an intense, disconcerting phenomenon - as if he were hearing quicker than you can get the words out, as if he were sucking the information out of you."
The author has a sharp eye for the detail and nuance of political behaviour. He describes how Stanton can turn a mere handshake "the threshold act, the beginning of politics" into a form of political massage. It's not the pressing of the flesh that, counts, it's Stanton's "genius with the other hand. If he squeezes your elbow or biceps it means he's interested in you and honoured to meet you; if he drapes his arm over your back, you've become buddies and even co conspirators.
"If he doesn't know you all that well and you've just told him something `important', something earnest or emotional, he will lock in and honour you with a two hander, his left hand overwhelming your wrist and forearm. He'll flash that famous misty look of his. And he will mean it." (Scenes like this are enacted in the Dail Bar every day.)
But despite all the cynicism, the dirty deals and backstabbing, Stanton/Clinton has a genuine desire to serve the people, takes a real interest in the underdog and has, for all his flaws, a certain nobility of character.
Most of the events take place during the hugely important New Hampshire primary and much of the plot concerns the efforts of Stanton and other candidates to outwit and/or manipulate the "scorps" of the media. "They're the enemy," says a Stanton aide. "They're what's standing between us and victory.
Media coverage goes into a different gear after Cashmere McLeod surfaces with tapes of lascivious phone calls between herself and Stanton. "A new class of journalists appeared that week: the snuff specialists, there to watch us writhe and die... get II on tape if Stanton breaks down, watch if he loses his temper or cries."
Cashmere's charges appear in a supermarket scandal sheet, beside tales of three headed sheep and UFOs on Boston Common. The quality media won't descend to mere gossip - perish the thought - but they will report on how the candidate is coping with the sleaze allegations. Burton moans: "Everyone was clean (except us). Everyone could shave tomorrow. They weren't scumbag gossip reporters, they were media analysts. The scorps weren't reporting the trash, but "how we dealt with the trash."
THOSE who believe US interest in the "Irish is entirely altruistic might ponder Burton's menu for a foray into New York: "You saw the obligatory groups, you made the obligatory promises - more money for the cities, an embassy in Jerusalem for the Jews, the release of a gun running IRA terrorist for the Irish."
Wearied by her husband's truancies, Susan Stanton the world's most fortified bunker" - finds solace with the narrator. I'd never, I realised, made love before to a woman who used hairspray," he writes. This is what he calls "campaign sex" and therefore less satisfying: a sandwich grabbed in transit, not a candle lit dinner.
The language of the book is lively and up to the minute. A spindoctor cum handler, the hero tries to save his candidate; from being "raped by the media" by engaging in "media riot control". There are semi humorous, reflections on how blacks and whites interact: "Most white people do this patronising number. They never disagree with you, even when you are talking the worst sort of garbage. It is near impossible to have a decent, human conversation with them ... They never just talk."
If the cui bono rule holds true, then the book was written by, or for, a supporter of the Republican party. Instead of using TV ads for your "negative campaigning" you commission a novel that gets turned into a movie that comes out a few weeks before the election. But is the Republican Party that clever? For the movie, Tommy Lee Jones would make a great Stanton, with Sissy Spacek as the long suffering Susan Jason Robards would have to be there somewhere and any old gang of pimps and Peeping Toms could be rounded up to play the "scorps".
Even President Clinton himself has mused publicly about the authorship of the book. One commentator suggests it had to be somebody who "hangs out" at the White House but doesn't have much to do, viz., Vice President Al Gore.
Must reading for political junkies.