The road to Camelot : inside JFK's five-year campaign / Thomas Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie.

"Simon & Schuster nonfiction original hardcover"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-373) and index.

"The Road to Camelot tells the story of a young and undistinguished junior senator who plotted his way to the presidency and changed the way we nominate and elect presidents. Kennedy and his young warriors invented modern presidential politics. They turned over the accepted wisdom that his Catholicism was a barrier to winning an election and plotted a successful course to that constituency. They hired Louis Harris to become the first presidential campaign pollster. They twisted arms. They charmed. They lined up party bosses, young enthusiasts, and fellow Catholics and turned the traditional party inside out. The last-minute invitation to Lyndon B. Johnson for vice president in 1960 surprised them only because they had failed to notice that he wanted it. They also invented a missile gap in the Cold War and outshone Richard Nixon in the TV debates. Acclaimed, award-winning journalists Tom Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie provide a comprehensive account of the Kennedy campaign. The authors have examined more than 1,600 oral histories at the John F. Kennedy library. They have interviewed surviving sources, including JFK's sister Jean Smith, and drawn on their interviews with insiders, including Ted Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. From the start of the campaign in 1956, The Road to Camelot reveals John F. Kennedy as a tough, shrewd political strategist who kept his eye on the prize. This is one of the most vigorous campaign stories of all time, appropriate in today's political climate"-- Provided by publisher.