Back in the 1970s, how did we go about our writing? Here is an instance. In the summer of 1973, I wrote the original draft of Congress: The Electoral Connection in longhand on (mostly) yellow lined 8x14 legal-sized pads using a number two pencil. That was the way to go. No computers back then. I didn't use an electric typewriter or even a manual one. As for devising a figure (on page 64) and a table (page 92), I drew them by hand. Once I got it all done, I whipped it off to a professional typist. I kept a photocopy, which I found and fished out of a closet a few years ago. This is that photocopy. I have left it alone except to supply a more legible version of page one. That old page is uniquely messy since I seem to have stuttered at getting into the writing.

I wrote this book draft paragraph by paragraph, footnote by footnote, in a form that went into print at Yale University Press in 1974 virtually unchanged. I drew on stacks of note cards and other materials that I had accumulated previously. The actual writing took thirteen weeks. It was a June-into-September enterprise wedged in between teaching semesters. There was a rhythm: I wrote during the days and watched the reruns of Sam Ervin's Watergate hearings during the evenings.