Matt Bai - The Front Runner (All the Truth Is Out Movie Tie-in)

HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published as All the Truth Is Out in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, in 2014

This edition HarperCollins Publishers 2018

© Matt Bai 2014

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Motion Picture Artwork (cover) © 2018 CTMG. All Rights Reserved

Author photograph © Robyn Twomey

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Matt Bai asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780008333218

Ebook Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008333225

Version 2018-12-13

For Ellen

Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

—F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Cover

Title Page

Copyright COPYRIGHT Copyright Dedication Epigraph PREFACE What It Took 1 Troublesome Gulch 2 Tilting Toward Culture Death 3 Out There 4 Follow Me Around 5 “I Do Not Think That’s a Fair Question” 6 All the Truth Is Out 7 Exile 8 A Lesser Land A Note on Sourcing Acknowledgments List of Searchable Terms Praise About the Author About the Publisher HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published as All the Truth Is Out in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, in 2014 This edition HarperCollins Publishers 2018 © Matt Bai 2014 Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018 Motion Picture Artwork (cover) © 2018 CTMG. All Rights Reserved Author photograph © Robyn Twomey A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Matt Bai asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green Source ISBN: 9780008333218 Ebook Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008333225 Version 2018-12-13

Dedication DEDICATION Dedication Epigraph PREFACE What It Took 1 Troublesome Gulch 2 Tilting Toward Culture Death 3 Out There 4 Follow Me Around 5 “I Do Not Think That’s a Fair Question” 6 All the Truth Is Out 7 Exile 8 A Lesser Land A Note on Sourcing Acknowledgments List of Searchable Terms Praise About the Author About the Publisher For Ellen

Epigraph EPIGRAPH Epigraph PREFACE What It Took 1 Troublesome Gulch 2 Tilting Toward Culture Death 3 Out There 4 Follow Me Around 5 “I Do Not Think That’s a Fair Question” 6 All the Truth Is Out 7 Exile 8 A Lesser Land A Note on Sourcing Acknowledgments List of Searchable Terms Praise About the Author About the Publisher Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men. —F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

PREFACE What It Took

1 Troublesome Gulch

2 Tilting Toward Culture Death

3 Out There

4 Follow Me Around

5 “I Do Not Think That’s a Fair Question”

6 All the Truth Is Out

7 Exile

8 A Lesser Land

A Note on Sourcing

Acknowledgments

List of Searchable Terms

Praise

About the Author

About the Publisher

ONE OF THE FIRST PEOPLE I CALLED after I decided to write this book in 2009 was Richard Ben Cramer. This was not a call I made lightly. I had, by this time, been writing about politics for The New York Times Magazine for the better part of a decade, so I was not exactly a journalistic unknown. But Richard was in a different category altogether. He was one of the greatest nonfiction writers of this or any age, and his seminal, 1,047-page chronicle of the 1988 presidential campaign— What It Takes: The Way to the White House —was arguably the greatest and most ambitious work of political journalism in American history.

We had talked by phone in the past, and I had written about him once, but never before had I sought his counsel. I feared finding out that one of my literary heroes was just another dismissive egoist—the business is full of them—who didn’t have time to dole out advice.

About thirty seconds into the conversation, Richard invited me to lunch at the old farmhouse he shared with his girlfriend (and later wife), Joan, on Maryland’s idyllic Eastern Shore. Anytime I liked, he said, just pick a day, he wasn’t doing much other than writing. The grace of that invitation wouldn’t have surprised anyone who knew him.

The next week, I drove the ninety minutes down to Chestertown, where Richard treated me to a cheeseburger as we talked about the craft of journalism and the book I intended to write. I had come to believe that there was something misunderstood and significant in the story of Gary Hart, whose spectacular collapse Richard had followed in What It Takes. I thought the forces that led to Hart’s undoing were more complicated and more consequential, looking back now, than anybody had really appreciated at the time. I had in mind a book not simply about a single, captivating episode in American politics, but also about the cultural transformation it portended.