Ballot Reviews

My review of From Brothel to Ballot Box starts with a newspaper article which appeared in the Las Vegas Review-Journal several years ago. The gist of the article was that a woman named Jessi Winchester, Mrs. Virginia City, would be competing in Las Vegas for the title of Mrs. Nevada. What made this non-story newsworthy was that Ms. Winchester was a working brothel prostitute. The article headline trumpeted Mrs. Virginia City's occupation, and even ran a picture.

Competing in this pageant was one of the bravest things I had ever seen a woman do. I said to my wife, "This lady deserves some encouragement. She's going to need it." She agreed, and we sent a small check to Jessi Winchester, Mrs. Virginia City, Virginia City, Nevada to help defray the costs of competing in the contest. She wrote back a nice thank you note and described the 1880's gowns she had made for the event, enclosed a picture, and invited us to the pageant, which we couldn't attend. But we asked her to call to tell us the outcome as soon as it was over. She did, at the edge of tears, desperately hurt at the shoddy treatment she had received at the hands of her fellow contestants and of the contest organizers. I was and am ashamed of my fellow Las Vegans for their cruelty and bad manners.

A review of From Brothel to Ballot Box, unlike most book reviews, must start not with what it is but with what it isn't. This is not a polished piece of literature from the pen of a master wordsmith. It is not carefully crafted. Neither is it a puff piece designed to curry favorable reviews and achieve some ulterior purpose. Nor is it cautious and politically correct. The book, like the author, is intense, funny, insightful, sad, happy, hopeful, despairing, angry, thoughtful. But not in any particular order. It is written like a conversation one would have with a raconteur friend at the dinner table and over drinks by the fire. It is a book written from the gut. It is an "I am." It is "Credo."

Jessi Winchester is a romantic midwest farm kid who believes, truly believes the Fourth of July rhetoric that we used to hear from the bandshell in the city park after the parade. She believes that the promises of the Declaration of Independence apply to her personally, and to her countrymen individually and that the Constitution is the instrument to guarantee that they do. She believes in the notion that the most capable people should fill the toughest jobs. She believes in family and friends and loyalty and honesty and fair play. She is willing to take risks for what she believes in. And she believes in testing herself against the world.

She marries a cop, starts a family, goes through a divorce, takes up motorcycles and movie stunt work, and becomes a movie executive. And falls in love. Her new husband, Michael, is severely injured in a accident, and the family, now in Nevada, must have an income. So Jessi, after discussing the move at length with Michael and the kids, goes to work in a Nevada brothel. And thus begins the odyssey.

By the time the book ends, Jessi has taken us from the Mustang Ranch through two statewide contests for public office. The names of the Nevada politicians and party figures, some of whom I know personally, will mean nothing to most readers. They aren't necessary to the story, and their actions are undeserving of any ink from me. This is a book about an American willing to attempt great things and to overcome disillusionment by the hypocrisy of "the system." This is a book you will want to give to your sons and daughters and say, "Here is a woman to be proud of. Here is a woman who rises above petty labels and phony respectability to pursue worthy goals. Here is the kind of person an American should strive to be."

Jessi Winchester's book, FROM BORDELLO TO BALLOT BOX, shows the side of American politics we all knew about but hoped wouldn't happen (until shortly after it was published).

The book is remarkably endearing in discussing the author's life, from the stated date of her birth (you'd never think it) up to the writers' strike of 1988 which prompted her to leave an exeuctive job in Hollywood. A lot of autobiographies, even by and about "nice" people, don't show warmth or a range of emotion.

The part everybody wants to read, of course, is about the author's life as a courtesan. It is thankfully tame, with the most hair-raising parts detailing her relationships with other women of the brothels. There is also a separate section about Joe Conforte, a brothel-chain owner, which probably should have been moved to the discussion of brothel life. Conforte sounds and acts like a mobster, and appears to have had much to do in influencing hostile attitudes toward brothels.

Once Ms. Winchester gets into the political arena, the best parts are the friction between Northern Nevada (which is 99% of the state's area but barely half its population) and Las Vegas, which confirmed its reputation as Sin City in quite a new way. A parade of political figures, some of them difficult to follow, court votes in Vegas and ignore Reno, Carson City and other locations in the rest of the big state. No wonder, because Vegas seems to have billions of dollars to siphon off in corruption, making the rest of the state look like a quarter slot machine.

The book ends with an impassioned plea for third parties to combat the "annointment" system for candidates by Republicans and Democrats. This was written before the Reform Party disintegrated under Pat Buchanam's Presidential campaign, and also before Jesse Ventura (whom the author likes) began plans to announce for the Extreme Football League. It will undoubtedly leave a bad taste in the mouths of many supporters of the two major political parties, and require much careful planning and support of specific issues before independent candidates win many offices.

As an expose' of politics as usual, this book offers little hope. As an autobiography, it is a charm and is well worth reading as a story of setting up The American Dream and working toward it. And, whatever she might say, you know she is still working toward it.

Several books are on the market about Nevada's brothels. I have read three. One was by a madam and was quite interesting from her point of view. One was by a person who wasn't even part of the sex business and was doing a condom study instead at a brothel. Her book was not very good. From Bordello to Ballot Box was written by an actual working girl, which makes a huge difference. Not only does Ms. Winchester show the human side of sex workers, she battled the evil world of politics and made people see her as a human being. Her book is very compelling and brings a lot of emotions to the surface. I couldn't put it down.

This is a fabulous reference for how Lyndon Johnson outedged Coke Stevenson for the Senator of Texas in 1948 by a mere eighty-seven votes. Had Lyndon B. Johnson not of won this election he may of never became President.

A well-written, thorough study of one of the forgotten, yet most important, moments in Texas and American politics. Kahl provides a complete story of "Landslide Lyndon's" ballot box fraud in his race for the U.S. Senate in 1948. Had Johnson lost this election, he might never have been president, and this book tells the complete story of how LB J and his cronies stole an election, then used parliamentary tricks to avoid being overturned. Mary Kahl puts the whole story together in a fascinating read. If you are a Lyndon Johnson fan, or a Lyndon Johnson critic, you have to read this story.

Dr. Gilbert Mason has written a book which not only stands as an important literary stone in the foundation of the civil rights movement, but also as a window into the humanity and "higher calling" of being a physician. As a white physician in Mississipppi, I was riveted when I read this book. The hardship which was endured by African Americans during this era is unimaginable, and it was only a generation ago. With eloquence and thouroughness Dr. Mason leads us through the origins of the civil rights movement specifically as it occurred in Biloxi MS. The racial hatred and violence which opposed his nonviolent protests and the fledgling Biloxi chapter of the NAACP is laid out for the reader with very good clarity. When I read this book, the secondary theme also jumped out at me, which was his constant pusuit of being a physician , specifically maintaing high degree of ethics, morality, and care for all patients black are white during this period of tribulation. I highly recommend this book to all.

This book is incredible but still lacks a depth to qualify it for 5 stars. It's intriquite description of the scenes, the vote, and the bloodshed are all aspects which are touching to even the coldest of people. Highly recomendable - If you can face the truths of this world!

I have read the bulk of the Germond/Witcover (G/W) series and most of the books have been very good. This one was no exception. G/W take you through the strange politics of 1992 where a womanizing, draft dodging, uninhaling dope smoker won the election against an incumbent who had posted a 91% approval rating just 21 months earlier.

The Good: they give you the close-up story of Ross Perot's pyrrhic attempt to buy the White House, Clinton's favorite color as "plaid," and Dan Quayle's inability to spell potato. They also go into the weeds by viewing the election through the lens of abortion politics, implying that Bush was behind because of his pro-life stance. That leads us into the bad.

The Bad: It becomes obvious from reading the book that G/W hate Bush for some reason. They refer to him as "ever-whining" and repeatedly bring up Bush's 1988 election where Bush "went negative" against Dukakis with "racial politics." But they NEVER MENTION Clinton's race baiting by critcizing Bush's Haitian policy by saying, "I wouldn't be shipping those poor black people back." Since the book was published in 1993, they had a chance to tell this story and set the record straight: 400 people died just days after Clinton's inauguration trying to come to America because of CLINTON playing racial politics. For all of Bush's "Willie Horton," Bush never hurt a single person with his campaign. They also pillory the pro-life position and imply that although the voters split evenly on abortion, there are enough Republican women who will vote Democrat if the other issues are clearly defined. This fails to explain the so-called "angry white male" that supposedly appeared out of nowhere in 1994.

The Ugly: For some reason, when George Bush went out with balloons and slogans and Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was "politics as usual." When Bill and Al rode through the Rust Belt like two good old boys looking for the Jack Daniels distillery, it was "a bold stroke." Apparently, Democrats are permitted to "play politics" but Republicans aren't.

The Unmentioned: Why didn't G/W mention the following things that would have made Gore and Clinton seem just as ignorant as Quayle: 1. Gore referring to that great Tennessee President James Knox (note: it was James Knox POLK); 2. Clinton saying, "I hope you'll give Al Gore and I a chance (this from a Rhodes scholar who should have known it was "Al Gore and me"); or 3. Bill Clinton's history of "reinventing" himself. They take Jerry Brown to task for it in the book, but remain silent on Clinton doing that very thing.

Still, it is a worthwile book, just be aware of their own prejudices.

The Germond/Witcover series is the best set of "campaign books" in recent years. And while the solid reporting continues in this effort, there's something missing. Many political junkies rank 1992 as the oddest election in memory, stranger even than the de facto tie of the 2000 race. Why? Two reasons: the inexplicable buoyancy of Bill Clinton, and the Perot phenomenon -- that brief springtime period when a businessman on a third party ticket shot to 40 percent in the polls while the Democratic nominee fell to third place (less than 25 percent!) and then recovered to win the election -- and oust an incumbent Republican who had polled a 91 percent approval rating less than two years earlier. Germond and Witcover tell the whole story, but the sense of the bizarre that pervaded that election is lacking.

Germond and Whitcover carry on the tradition of Theodore H. White's "Making of the President" series with their recap of the 1992 election. Theirs is the most complete recap available of the campaign that put Bill Clinton in the White House. They are experienced and vetran reporters who have seen many campaigns and are able to capture every nuance in a complete and readable manner.

This is not a scholarly book, its analysis is non-convincing, and it obviously relies mainly on secondary soources. But the innately intersting nature of the story it tells makes the reading enjoyable.