text: College stoner cult following aside, Hunter S. Thompson's journalistic prowess was a vital national resource up until he left us last February.  Thompson was one of those brave few who dared to cut through popular media perceptions and glittery rhetoric and travel right to the ugly center of his subject material, counjouring hilarious allegories where the average journalist would already have soiled himself in disillusionment.  
  
  On the Campaign Trail should be required reading for all those who hold a less skeptical view of American politics than say, the average WWE heavyweight title match, for a truly sane person should be no more shocked to hear of a politician lying or cheating to increase his presidential hopes than when The Undertaker strikes his opponent with a steel chair when the referee turns his back.  Hunter has long since traveled through this looking glass -- although he can at times be found expressing nostalagia for the wide-eyed optimism of the 60s -- but the result is not nearly as depressing as it is hilarious.  The image of Thompson infiltrating the Nixon Youth at the RNC and yelling obscenities and death threats at rival journalist John Chancellor's press box while surrounded by hundreds of kids chanting "Four more years!" was one of the funniest any book has offered me in a while.
  
  How does the cliche go -- "The more things change, the more they stay the same"?  After the thorough spanking of George McGovern at the hands of Richard Nixon, HST credits the most staggering blow to McGovern's presidential hopes to a media crisis involving his vice-presidential nominee, Thomas Eagleton.  Just days after Eagleton was named as McGovern's running mate, two Democratic campaign managers received phone calls revealing that Eagleton had gone through intensive psychiatric treatment on three separate occasions.  As the story spread like wildfire throughout the press, McGovern's presidential hopes were dealt a blow from which they would never recover.  Since then, we've seen Willie Horton and the Swift Boat Veterans come out to haunt their respective candidates, and one is inclined to wonder who the Democratic "mascot" will be for the 2008 race.  Perhaps a mentally disabled child whose tricycle was crushed by the car of Hillary Clinton?  A Dominican prostitute who gave Joe Biden the clap?
  
  But I digress.  I give On the Campaign Trail 4 out of 5 stars because the book, like presidential campaigns themselves, can at times seem uneventful.  Thompson addresses this from time to time, wondering aloud what it was that made him want to cover politics in the first place before remembering that the rush one feels from being a part of a winning political team is nearly identical to that of a junkie getting that long-needed fix.  Other parts of the book will only make sense to the more hardcore followers of politics.  For instance, HST's extensive interview with campaign manager Rick Stearns, where Stearns explains the intricacies of acquiring state delegates, reads like hieroglyphics to me.
  