Washington Notebook | 7 May 2015

This week has been all about the election, the US presidential election that is. It is 18 months away but already the race is sending out sparks and popping like a newly lit fire. On the one hand, there’s Hillary. She takes a trip by van across ‘the real America’ — a near-faultless launch of her campaign, everyone agrees, until she eats a meal in a fast food restaurant and forgets to tip. Then there’s the Republican field, heading for a dozen strong, but perhaps ending up whittled down to just Jeb Bush. This state of affairs caused one frustrated challenger to complain: ‘The presidency of the United States is not some crown to be passed between two families.’ The winner will spend around $2.5 billion getting elected. This is a ridiculous amount, I say to one Republican party elder. ‘No,’ he says, ‘It’s less than the US spends on marketing pet food in any given year.’ He has a point.

Among political hacks in this town, Richard Ben Cramer’s brilliant 1,000-page account of the 1988 presidential race, What It Takes, has talismanic status. It was such a labour to produce that he didn’t get around to publishing it until after the 1992 race, so unsurprisingly it didn’t sell. But word of mouth built and every four years it inspires a new generation of campaign journalists. Ben Cramer was in Joe Biden’s living room when he resolved to run for president (in 1988 — he may run again now); he was with George Bush (senior) when he flubbed the opening pitch at a Texas Rangers game; he got inside the candidates’ heads because often he was right next to them at their moments of crisis or decision. Everyone covering a campaign since has tried to recapture what Ben Cramer had.