Just Good Politics: The Life of Raymond Chafin, Appalachian Boss.

• Author: Savage, Joe

Raymond Chafin and Topper Sherwood University of Pittsburgh Press, $24.95

After the 1960 primary in West Virginia, John Kennedy joked that he'd received a telegram from his father pleading: "Don't buy another vote. I won't pay for a landslide."

While it is true that JFK confronted the "Catholic issue" in Bible-belt West Virginia and put it to rest by defeating Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic primary there, it is also clear from this autobiography of Chafin, the longtime Democratic boss of Logan County in southern West Virginia, that this act of ecumenical voting was aided by a long-established system of voter bribery in the boss-dominated coal fields. This intersection of Camelot with a part of the country riddled with illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, substandard housing, poverty, and isolation provides an opening for some insights on corrupt political systems everywhere.

Although Humphrey spread some campaign money around West Virginia, too, when it came to serious cash "he'd never come through with anything," Chafin says. Chafin attributes his personal support for Kennedy exclusively to his assessment of who would be best for West Virginia, his admiration for Jacqueline Kennedy after meeting her during the campaign, and his own wife and daughter's growing excitement about JFK. It is portrayed as simply coincidental that after receiving $2,000 from Humphrey, he pledged his support to the Minnesota senator but switched to Kennedy when he received $35,000 cash in two briefcases at the Logan County airport from Kennedy operatives the week before the primary. While he says the amount was "a mistake"--he'd only asked for $3,500--Chafin reassures his readers that he spent it all on election activity, including illegal vote-buying, and did not pocket any of the cash himself.

Chafin describes how the mechanics of vote-buying requires the cooperation of both Republicans and Democrats at the polling places. Voters willing to sell their ballot ask a poll watcher for "assistance." By law, these poll watchers are from both parties. They "assist" the voter by casting the ballot for the slate he's going to be paid to vote for and then signal outside the "house" that the vote had been cast, allowing campaign workers in the yard to make the promised payment.

Then and now, in exchange for playing along with the corrupt system, the heavily outnumbered Republicans in southern West Virginia receive token government positions (today it is usually a seat on the...