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Nonfiction Puffs of steam and other lies THE CARNIVAL CAMPAIGN: How the Rollicking 1840 Campaign of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” Changed Presidential Elections Forever By Ronald G. Shafer 279 pp. Chicago Review Press Reviewed by Marty Carlock There was a happy time in American history when presidential candidates did not campaign for themselves. They sat modestly at home and let their adherents extoll their virtues. This golden age came to an end in 1839. In December of that year the Whig party met to choose a candidate for the presidency. The Kentucky statesman Henry Clay expected to win, but the convention thought he had too many political enemies and, as a slave-holder, would be a loser in the North. They settled instead on ex-General William Henry Harrison, a hero of the Indian wars, who had been out of the public eye for so long that no one had any idea what his policies might be. Not to worry – the Whig politicos’ strategy was “never to defend or explain anything, but persistently ...