What You Find Out Reading Books

I did not know that Fox News honcho Roger Ailes worked on Jim Holshouser's successful primary campaign in 1972 against Republican Party favorite Jim Gardner. According to Gabriel Sherman, Holshouser sold his family's motel in Boone to raise the cash he needed to run a successful primary:

After developing a set of devastatingly effective attack ads, Ailes propelled Holshouser into office, making him the first Republican governor elected in the state since 1901.

Holshouser ran against and beat Democrat Skipper Bowles in the general election. Holshouser probably benefitted from the reelection coattails of Richard Nixon, another of Ailes's clients back in those days.

Ailes was a moderate back then, working for moderate Republicans.

Gabriel Sherman, The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes built Fox News -- And Divided a Country, New York: Random House, 2014.