The contemporary news cycle spins too quickly, and it’s too hooked on buzz and heat. Nobody today would be able to write about politics the way he did. (I teach the Williams profile at the University of Pennsylvania.) So when he turned his attention to politics, he was able to approach the topic as an outsider, freed of its journalistic conventions. Indeed, shortly before embarking on his political book, he profiled baseball great Ted Williams for Esquire magazine, capturing the ornery guy as nobody else ever had or would. He had previously worked as a foreign correspondent for The Philadelphia Inquirer (back when the paper had money for such things), and as a general-assignment magazine freelancer with an abiding interest in sports figures. He had never been a journalistic grunt on the campaign trail. (And how fitting it was that when PBS aired its 1996 documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane, it was narrated and co-written by Cramer.)Ĭramer broke all the political coverage rules because he was never beholden to them in the first place. But just as Citizen Kane came to be viewed as a classic, What It Takes during the past two decades has similarly cemented its timeless status. The book sold poorly, and Cramer barely saw a dime. Just as Citizen Kane was often reviled or ignored after its 1941 release, What It Takes was widely attacked by campaign-trail journalists after its 1992 release. Just as Orson Welles indulged his wildest cinematic ambitions, Cramer reported deeply and wrote boldy, in a style best described as iconoclastic grandeur.

Just as Citizen Kane shattered all the conventions of filmmaking, Cramer’s book throws out the political reporters’ rulebook. Put simply, What It Takes is the Citizen Kane of political writing.

You’ll be amazed how fast 1000 pages can fly. Richard Ben Cramer, a legendary journalist who died all too young yesterday at 62, wrote a book about presidential candidates that will endure for generations.

What it takes ben cramer