Dog Days a novel by Ana Marie Cox

Dog Days- http://www.amazon.com/Dog-Days-Ana-Marie-Cox/dp/1594489017
This novel was an interesting bit of tawdriness in the non-campaign season. I say non-campaign because it's not a major election year unlike next year. PSSST! Don't tell that to anyone on the current presidential campaigns! The book chronicles a young girl from Iowa-Melanie Thornton's life as a PR flack (Junior level) for the John Kerryesque John Hillman as he runs for President. His campaign is thrown a muck by a C-4 group called the Clearheads who accuse him of having brain experiments performed in college on himself.

The comparison to the Swiftboat Vets for Truth campaign is obvious. Even more obvious is the current President and incumbent in the race-William Golden. Golden says dumb things, the country does not like him(the book is written from the view of a liberal democrat), and yet he has an undeniable charm that infuriates the Hillman campaign and makes their work hard.
The main character has a best friend who is a lobbyist named Julie Thorton. Julie seems to be a composite of a number of people I have met, she's from a wealthy family, she loves spin, she has no c0mpunction about lobbying for any special interest. Julie warns Melanie that the TV host she is having an extramarital affair with is not honest and may be using her.

Julie and Melanie's friendship is a source of comfort to Melanie, as Julie is wise about the ways of DC, but in the end the friendship only serves as a demarcation of what Melanie wants to leave behind.

The affair with Rick Stossel (the tv host) is hard to understand, at first it seems to be going somewhere. But, it quickly becomes clear by Julie's statements and Melanie's internal monologues that the relationship is doomed. (SPOILER ALERT, SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU CARE) Personally, I suppose the relationship is supposed to mean more to the reader, but Cox kills it too quickly for me. I know it's going to end by the first 1/4 of the book and I don't like the guy. Maybe Cox just wanted to take out some aggression on the general DC establishment male newshow hosts. There are certainly more than enough hosting shows, cheating on wives, full of vigor.

And she has worked with more than a few in her career. Whatever the case, the character of Rick Stossel is barely attractive between his teethpicking, big nasty glasses, fatness, and unfaithful actions. He is supposedly very fast on the words and good at strategy. These two things are worth gold in the DC circuit, I'll admit they mean more then looks, most of the time, although money seems to get most people a second slot position on the social circuit even if they aren't respected at the end of the day.

What I liked about the book is that it: chronicled the relationship between pr flacks and the media just like it is, detailed the weather in August accurately(and believe me the weather in August in DC is worth an entire book, only rivaling the works of Tennyson on Misissippi), the drinking culture is dead on, and a variety of DC political culture in miniature. I think the best part in the book is when Melanie looks over to see an intern writing down word for word what the head of the campaign is saying to the Hillman staff. That would include the swearwords and dumb jokes.

I have to laugh because in my intern days and I know just about everyone else in this town, there was a sense of needing to perform but not always knowing what to perform on that leaves room for this kind of behavior. The descriptions of young staffers wearing 'West Wing' appropriate expressions is so perfect. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to tell people to calm down and chill out, that their uptight behavior wasn't going to win them a better job. Its just that behaving like this seems safer than being relaxed and jovial. Melanie's story of being called to DC for her work on issue campaigns in the Midwest and being from Iowa is almost a stereotype, I grew up in Iowa and I can honestly say there are more Iowans out here than any other state working in politics.

The best part may be when the characters of Melanie and Julie create the Capitolette, a blog supposedly written by a very slutty, albeit not bright, DC woman who has enough sex stories to make a locker room proud. The story unwinds to focus more on this character as Melanie and Julie find a woman to play the part for real-Heather. Heather is just like the character they have written out and perfect for the media blitz that follows her public appearances.

What I have to stop and remark on is that I knew the woman this Capitolette is based on-she was called the Washingtonnienne. A good friend worked with her and while I did not know her personally, I knew all about how stupid she was and how her blog affected the staff of Senator Dewine. So, at the time that she came out with her identity or had it revealed, she was working with Wonkette-or Ana Marie Cox-to gain publicity. At the time people in town conjectured that maybe Wonkette had created the whole story with only part being true to garner interest in her blog.

I have to say after reading this book which is a loosely veiled version of the 2004 events leading up to the election that year-I am now more convinced that Cox did in fact help invent Washingtonienne. I read the book Washingtonienne, Jessica Cutler's thinly veiled fictional telling of how the Washingtonienne blog blew up, it rang mostly true in describing why she behaved the way she did-but Cox allludes to the book being written in Dog Days.

So I have my own theories now based off these two books and in the end I don't think they would matter much to anyone who is not part of the DC circuit. And especially if they were not in town during this time period and familiar with the events.

I finished the book in a week and found it entertaining, but really in the end too insiderey and a bit fluffy. I couldn't recommend it to anyone unless they were seriously considering coming to DC to work on a campaign or in the political circuit.
Her webpage- http://www.anamariecox.com/
Her bio-http://www.anamariecox.com/bio.html
The Wikipedia version of her bio- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Marie_Cox