Perhaps the most clear description of Freak
Power came from one of the many campaign
posters written by Thompson: “This is the real
point: that we are not really freaks at all – not
in the literal sense – but the twisted realities of
the world we are trying to live in have somehow
combined to make us feel like freaks. We argue,
we protest, we petition – but nothing changes.”
Thompson’s campaign attracted quite a bit of
attention. But the most interested media outlet
was Rolling Stone. The owner and editor, Jann
Wenner, became a good friend and recurring
nemesis of Thompson’s. Much like the Acosta
letters, the correspondences between the two are
legendary.
Thompson’s first article for Rolling Stone,
“
The Battle of Aspen,” was published in the Oc-
tober 1, 1970 issue. It was around this time that
Thompson stumbled upon the city of Las Vegas.
FEAR AND LOATHING
In two issues in 1971, there appeared articles
by the author Raoul Duke entitled “Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas.” As Douglas Brinkley
wrote, the book “follows Duke and his three-
hundred pound Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo,
to Las Vegas, ostensibly to cover a motorcycle
race and then a convention of district attorneys.”
Raoul Duke had become Thompson’s alter
ego previously in correspondences. It allowed
him to say things that he couldn’t under his
own name and to blur fact, fiction and fantasy
together.
Thompson felt he had a classic on his hands
and a few people echoed this. However, when
“
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was pub-
lished in book form it did not sell nearly as well
as “Hell’s Angels.” But it did solidify Thomp-
son’s conviction in what he was doing.
Thompson’s next big job for Rolling Stone was
covering the Democratic Party during the 1972
election. Thompson harbored a basic hatred for
typical politicians but became quickly enamored
of South Dakota senator George McGovern. Mc-
Govern ran on an anti-Vietnam ticket and was,
in Thompson’s eyes, the more politically correct
manifestation of the Freak Party. However, after
McGovern won the Democratic nomination on
an insurgent campaign, he relented to party
politics and, instead of staying on the path that
got him the nomination, tried to unite the base,
thus losing the alternative voter base that had
put him in position to take the presidency from
Nixon.
In the end, McGovern lost in a landslide but
Thompson turned out what still stands today as
the preeminent and most insightful piece ever
written on a presidential election, “Fear and
Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72.” And he
made a life-long friend in George McGovern.
Over the next few years, Thompson covered
the withdrawal of American troops in Vietnam,
the fall of Laos and put together an often-
overlooked political summit. In 1974, Thompson
along with a group that included Wenner, ex-
RFK campaign veterans and McGovern strate-
gists gathered in Elko, Nev. to create a liberal
strategy for political victory following the fall
of Nixon. What resulted, as Thompson recalled,
was “gibberish.”
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