Playing with Fire

The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics

By: Lawrence O'Donnell

Narrated by: Lawrence O'Donnell

From the host of MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, an important and enthralling new account of the presidential election that changed everything, the race that created American politics as we know it today.

The 1968 US presidential election was the young Lawrence O'Donnell's political awakening, and in the decades since it has remained one of his abiding fascinations. For years he has deployed one of America's shrewdest political minds to understanding its dynamics, not just because it is fascinating in itself but because in it is contained the essence of what makes America different and how we got to where we are now. Playing with Fire represents O'Donnell's master class in American electioneering, embedded in the epic human drama of a system and a country coming apart at the seams in real time.

Nothing went according to the script. LBJ was confident he'd dispatch with Nixon, the GOP frontrunner; Johnson's greatest fear and real nemesis was RFK. But Kennedy and his team, despite their loathing of the president, weren't prepared to challenge their own party's incumbent. Then, out of nowhere, Eugene McCarthy shocked everyone with his disloyalty and threw his hat in the ring to run against the president and the Vietnam War. A revolution seemed to be taking place, and LBJ, humiliated and bitter, began to look mortal. Then RFK leapt in, LBJ dropped out, and all hell broke loose. Two assassinations and a week of bloody riots in Chicago around the Democratic Convention later, and the old Democratic Party was a smoldering ruin, and, in the last triumph of old machine politics, Hubert Humphrey stood alone in the wreckage.

Suddenly Nixon was the frontrunner, having masterfully maintained a smooth façade behind which he feverishly held his party's right and left wings in the fold, through a succession of ruthless maneuvers to see off George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller, Ronald Reagan, and the great outside threat to his new Southern Strategy, the arch-segregationist George Wallace. But then, amazingly, Humphrey began to close, and so, in late October, Nixon pulled off one of the greatest dirty tricks in American political history, an act that may well meet the statutory definition of treason. The tone was set for Watergate and all else that was to follow, all the way through to today.

©2017 Lawrence O'Donnell (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"In this delightful combination of vivid storytelling and sharp political insight, Lawrence O'Donnell brings to life the most fascinating election of modern times. His book is filled with memorable anecdotes and colorful characters, from Roger Ailes and Richard Nixon to Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. But beneath the rollicking tale is a truly profound historical truth: how the Sixties still reverberates in our nation's soul." (Walter Isaacson)

"But O'Donnell, a former aide to Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, understands politics and its impact. He writes with an assurance and steady sense of pace that makes much of this seem new." (Ray Locker, USA Today)

“I love the way Lawrence thinks, I love the way he writes. Playing with Fire is him at his best - this is a thriller-like, propulsive tour through 1968, told by a man who is in love with American politics and who knows how all the dots connect. Brilliant and totally engrossing.” (Rachel Maddow)

long book but great story. Impeach Trump!

long book but great story. Impeach Trump! Don't allow history to repeat itself any longer!!

Lawrence O'Donnell has captured the spirit of 1968

Excellent read, extensively researched history of the year that all who lived it will never forget.

Should be mandatory reading

If you are 65 or older, read/listen to relive and clarify your memories. If you’re younger, read/listen to better understand how we as a nation got to where we find ourselves now. Either way, you will learn a great deal and have even more to think about.

Great addition to the history of 1968.

Found it so informative. I watch Lawrence on MSNBC. His book is very good. I learned a lot. Lawrence was also a very good narrator.

Vivid, intimate history

The writing is both detailed and sweeping, a web of character portraits and incisive descriptions of policies and events that is relentlessly compelling. The manages to feel comprehensive without becoming dull or ponderous, which is no mean feat. One of the best historical works I’ve ever come across.

Excellent

For millenials and tail-end boomers, this book is a must read account of a period of a time that changed the trajectory of this country. I learned so much! Narration was superb!

A memory

This is a review of my adult years and brought back sad memories. I experience the racism of the second reconstruction. The book also showed be rottenness of LBJ and made me sad for Hubert Humphrey.

I learned so much

Thank you for writing this book. It was very well written. I am looking forward to your next book!

The things I didn't know ...

Wonderful review of a period I lived through and thought I knew. Filled in a lot of holes. Lawrence O'Donnell is a star!

Nixon’s crimes

Brought multiple characters together. Innocent bystanders hurt in the Chicago police riot. What ifs are food for the imagination