The Candidate: A Political Romance by Joseph A. Altsheler

Description

Altsheler’s political romance opens in the heat of a nominating convention, where a quiet clerk in the press gallery is anointed by forces he did not control. Suddenly Harley is fighting for a seat in Congress, and his enemies are not only the opposition party but the men in his own who intend to own his vote once he is elected.

The campaign that follows is briskly literal: mass meetings, long rides, rival newspapers, and the arithmetic of a district where every voter remembers an old favor or a new grudge. Against this machinery Altsheler sets a heroine who costs the candidate more than she gains him, and a sense of place so specific that the bluegrass rides with every speech. It is romance with a working knowledge of how American politics was actually done at the dawn of the new century.

For readers of political fiction

• Campaign mechanics from the inside, observed by a man who knew his ground.
• The honor conflict of a candidate who refuses the strings attached to support.
• A love story conducted in the intervals between speeches.

About This DodaBooks Edition

All 24 chapters are reset in clean, continuous type with a working index.