A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House: Humor, Blunders, and Other Oddities from the Presidential Campaign Trail

Charles Osgood, one of America's favorite news personalities, offers a hilarious compendium of anecdotes from the last seventy years of presidential campaigns.

With anecdotes from Harry Truman to JFK to George W. Bush, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House captures the wit and humor of the campaign trail. Culled from speeches, interviews, press conferences, as well as articles written by and about the candidates--no source is left untapped.

From Bob Dole telling reporters after a loss in the primary that "I slept like a baby--every two hours I woke up and cried," and Barry Goldwater's comment that his talkative opponent Hubert Humphreys "has been clocked at 275 words a minute with gusts up to 340," to Adlai Stevenson declaring that "If I talk over the people's head, Ike must be talking under their feet," this is the go-to source for campaign humor.

Just when America most needs a good laugh, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House makes the seemingly endless race to the presidency a lot more fun.

© 2025 Grand Central Publishing (Ebook): 9781401395384

Release date

Ebook: 8 April 2025