The Race for the Eighth

By Gerald Sullivan and Michael Kenney

Harper and Row; $19.95.

IT TAKES guts to try saying anything new about a campaign that already has been covered to a sodden, whimpering death by every political reporter in the country, not to mention Japanese TV and the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Fortunately for posterity--and political junkies in other states--Messrs. Sullivan and Kenney took up this challenge and wrote a book about the race to succeed Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill in Congress. Unfortunately for those of us who remember the race, their book is no more original than its title.

The authors set out to write a congressional cousin to to Theodore H. White's Making of the President books. What they would up writing was a long news story. It's a good story, if a bit dull and academic, with neat tables of poll data and primary election results. It will provide nice raw information some day for Government these by the babies that Jim Roosevelt kissed.

However, a book ought to go beyond even the best daily newspaper in making sense of events. Kenney and Sullivan had nearly a year to put the race in perspective and tell us what it all meant for American politics in the 1980's. They could have said a lot of things that daily reporters couldn't or didn't because they were too close to the race to understand it.

The primary battle lasted more than a year. The candidates spent nearly $4 million to project their views of themselves, each other and the world. At the end of that time, it was hard to tell manufactured image from reality. A year later, when the bumper stickers are peeling off of the taxicabs, it would have been nice to read a reasonably detached opinion on whether or not it was worth all that blood, sweat and ink.

Often they draw conclusions, but seldom are they more than superficial. For example, they half-develop the theme of "class warfare" between traditional ethnic Democrats and educated Yuppie liberals, but they don't tell us what the race showed about the future of each of these groups.

SULLIVAN AND Kenney write like reporters, which means that they give facts precedence over conclusions. To do them justice, they shine in the details.

A few of their facts may be new to even well-informed readers. For example, they confirm the rumor that Harvard Associate Vice President for State and Community Affairs Jacqueline O'Neill, daughter-in-law of the Speaker, seriously considered a bid for Congress. They tell us that the Kennedy campaign bought 320 dozen donuts for 2000 precinct workers on primary day. We learn that Tom Gallagher had three separate encounters with Cambridgeport pit bulls during his effort to knock on nearly every door in the district. We also learn that Jim Roosevelt's heart wasn't in the "shrill" tactics his advisors suggested early in the campaign.

Sullivan and Kenney also chronicle the Boston Globe's internal battle over the paper's endorsement, which finally went to Kennedy. Incidentally, Kenney, a member of the Globe editorial board, does not tell us what position he took.

One of the book's biggest failings is the incidental coverage given to the more interesting minor candidates. More should have been written about the candidacy of Melvin H. King, whose campaign invited parallels with the presidential effort of his close associate, Jesse Jackson. Only a single paragraph is devoted to one of the campaign's unsolved puzzles, why King devoted what remained of his predominantly Black districts of Boston.

The book, not surprisingly, offers an especially close look at Kennedy's campaign organization. The authors show us a Kennedy recognizable only in the earlier magazine interviews. The public candidate we saw in 1986 was brittle, either too sure or not sure enough, dodging issues, stumbling over unexpected questions.

They see an idealistic young man determined to overcome his disillusionment with a political system he thinks he can change. It's a pity he didn't show that side of himself to the public more often.