The Buckley effect
William Buckley's 1965 New York mayoral candidacy is one of the great episodes in the rise of the modern conservate movement. Buckley's own account of the story -- The Unmaking of a Mayor -- followed the next year. It is, in my view, one of the great books in the rise of the modern conservative movement, a hilarious, inside-the-whale account of what would later come to be called the mainstream media.
Sam Tanenhaus is writing a biography of Buckley. Today's New York Times Magazine features Tanenhaus's retelling of the 1965 mayoral election: "The Buckley effect." In what must be a long excerpt from his work in progress, Tanenhaus doesn't get around to Buckley's book, but he's got the politics of the story covered.
