I have to give an embarrassing preface to this review: I never paid much attention in my American History classes. Meaning, I basically memorized the information for the tests then immediately forgot it. As far as my brain is concerned, the US Presidents go in this order: Washington, some Adams, Jeffersons and Jacksons, Lincoln, big blank spot, Roosevelt, some randos I recognize the name of but can't place, Daddy Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama.

So much ouch. I'm going to go cry in a corner now with my English class awards.

This being said, I still really enjoyed this book. When every election cycle is filled with people crying out about how dirty politics is now compared to yester-year... That's some convenient retelling of history. I was pretty amazed by how much worse campaigns were around our founding fathers. Talk about some back door dealing, they were masters. Especially since they didn't have the 24-hr media that we have today.

The chapters are broken down into each individual presidential race. The more controversial ones are rated on the "Sleaze-O-Meter" at the beginning of the chapter, while the more staid elections are just told in a brief rundown. Cummins does a wonderful job of succinctly telling the story of each election, as well as giving context for the elections to explain why people voted the way they did and why candidates made the decision they made. Not to mention going into the gaffes and scandals that followed almost every election cycle.

This book really opened my eyes to how campaigns have always been run, and I'm very glad that I read it. Now I just can't wait to get into this election cycle and see what happens!

Copy courtesy of Quirk Books, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review ( )

In this election year, it seemed fitting to read a book about presidential elections, especially dirty ones since 2016 is shaping up to be one of the ugliest in recent history. American politics has always been an ugly, eat your own kind of thing, especially presidential politics. Trump and his ilk are sadly only the most recent in a long line of loud-mouth, back-stabbing, mud-slinging presidential candidates. ( )

After George Washington, Who Could You Trust?

There are too many of them, spread over too many years, to remember the details. So Anything For A Vote is a welcome compendium of the vicious comedy that is presidential elections. It is terrific to read the human side of the candidates, the personalities behind the party rhetoric, their tics, foibles and predilections. You learn what they were trying to hide, how they undermined their opponents, and how voters perceived them in the context of their times. It makes them into real human beings. Names that have been forgotten, and some that deserve to be, pepper the campaigns. The backroom antics, the dirty tricks, outright lies and backstabbing are all there for your enjoyment.

Sleaze predominates, and Cummins provides a Sleaze-O-Meter before many of the elections, to give an advance clue as to how bad it became. Seven of them hit ten, mostly in the modern era, since Kennedy-Nixon. The negative campaigns of our time are nothing new. The mudslinging started with, or rather against, Thomas Jefferson, who ironically could appeal to any political stripe: “Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames, female chastity violated, your children writhing on the pike? Great God of compassion and justice, shield my country from destruction.”Jefferson won anyway.

For over a century, it was unseemly to campaign. Candidates literally stayed home, talked to reporters, and held court, but pressing the flesh and haranguing the crowd was frowned upon. Warren Harding was the first to invite Hollywood onto his front porch, so he could be photographed with film stars. It made him seem part of the scene rather than just a politician, and elections have never been without them since.

This is not the first version of Anything For A Vote. It’s an ongoing franchise, updatable every decade with new stories provided courtesy of the tweedledum-tweedledee of the political parties. It’s a refresher course, an eye-roller and a laughfest all in one.

David Wineberg ( )

Excellent! Very amusing but packed with relevant, factual information. ( )

Anyone who thinks the 2008 primary season has been nasty or vicious, needs to read this amusing summary of American presidential elections. The author provides a brief (2-8 page) recap of each election year, outlining the major candidates and the most important issues, before digging into the controversies. A handy Sleaze-O-Meter rates each election on a scale of 1-10. It seems that only the first election (when George Washington ran unopposed) avoided controversy.

Somehow this is all reassuring in an odd way. If the country has survived 200+ years of election year dirty tricks, we will manage to get through 2008 somehow.

Because each election year stands alone, this is a good book to pick up when you have only a few minutes to read. A word about quality: The book is printed on heavier than average paper, and the cover is unusually stiff and tight for a paperback. Not as heavy as a baby's board book, but the book looks like it would stand up to heavy use. However, both the front and back covers have delaminated on my copy, separating into multiple layers of paper. ( )