The Wild Strange Ride Of Hunter S. Thompson: Part III

Aspen Colorado would prove both a testing of Thompson's beliefs and a battleground between the grounded forces of the political establishment in Aspen and the camp of challengers led by the writer to establish a real alterantive to the party power structure. For Thompson it would be the race of a lifetime, and one that would place him in the memory of not only political historians, but the popular mythology of the common man. Thompson appeared from the outskirts like a modern day Robin Hood to challenge the corrupt dishonesty of the political establishment in Aspen. He is careful to note that it was rare for anyone to even run as sheriff in Aspen, and that his campaign took the old guard completly off guard in their calculations.

"The Freak Power election so polarized Aspen that we managed, in the end, to frighten up enough Negative/Scare votes to offset our shocking and unprecedented success in mobilizing the "freak" vote. We frightened the bastards so badly that on Election Day they rolled people in wheelchairs-----and even stretchers----into the polling places to vote against us. They brought out people, young and old, who thought "Ike" Eisenhower was still president of the U.S.A. "It was the goddamnest thing I've ever seen," said one of our poll watchers. "I was out there in Precinct One, where we thought things were cool, and all of a sudden they just rolled over us like a sheep drive. I've never seen so many pickup trucks in my life." (7)

Thompson would lose the election in Aspen, but not after a bitter fight, where the foes who had once faced one another in the arena of "good ole boy" politics had soon joined forces to defeat his run for sheriff. The lifestyle of Hunter was just too much for certain elements in the political spectrum to accept. In an election, where voter apathy was known to run extremely high, the voter turnout soon surged above 500 voters, rising to a total turnout in the 1,000 to 1,400 counter range. The old political machinery had defeated Hunter, but he had succeeded in bringing in more voters from the outer fringes of society, especially in the idealistic camps of the counter-culture, who normally avoided the electoral process to vote. He had proven that if given a choice, an alternative between the spectrum of normalcy offered by the two dominant political parties, that the voting public would respond and turn out in record numbers. He may have lost the battle, but he had in a sense won the war. Thompson never forgot his defeat or the lessons

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