The Last Hurrah

The plot of The Last Hurrah focuses on a mayoral election in an unnamed East Coast city. Veteran Irish, Democratic Party politician Frank Skeffington is running for yet another term as mayor. As a former governor, he is usually called by the honorific title "Governor." While the city is never named, it is frequently assumed to be Boston. Skeffington is assumed to represent Boston Mayor and Massachusetts Governor James Michael Curley. The story is told in the third person, either by a narrator or by Adam Caulfield, the mayor's nephew. Skeffington is a veteran and adept "machine" politician, and probably corrupt as well. The novel portrays him as a flawed great man with many achievements to his credit.

At the beginning of the book, Skeffington is 72 and has been giving signs that he might consider retiring from public life at the end of his current term. He surprises many by announcing what he had always intended to do: run for another term as mayor. The main body of the novel gives a detailed and insightful view of urban politics, tracking Skeffington and his nephew through rounds of campaign appearances and events, thereby showcasing a dying brand of politics and painting a broad picture of political life in general. His opponent, Kevin McCluskey, is a neophyte candidate with a handsome face and good manners, a good World War II record but no political experience, and no real abilities for politics or governing. However, McCluskey gets support from a new campaign medium: television advertising. Surprisingly, McClusky defeats Skeffington on election day.

One of Adam's friends explains that the election was "a last hurrah" for the kind of old-style machine politics that Skeffington had mastered. Developments in American public life, including the consequences of the New Deal, have so changed the face of city politics that Skeffington no longer can survive in the new age with younger voters. Also, prophetically, for the first time, television ads win the day.

Immediately after his defeat, Skeffington suffers a massive heart attack and another soon afterward. When he dies, he leaves behind a city in mourning for a pivotal figure in its history but no longer with room for either him or his kind.

• Frank Skeffington is the mayor of an unnamed city as well as that state's former governor. It is commonly accepted that the character of Skeffington is based on James Michael Curley, Mayor of Boston 1914-1918, 1922–1926, 1930–1934 and 1946–1950, and Governor of Massachusetts 1935-1937. At the end of his fourth term as Mayor in 1949, aged 74, Curley ran for re-election but was defeated by John Hynes.
• Frank Skeffington, Jr. is the son of the mayor. He is a disappointment to his father because he has no ambition and seems to be interested only in dancing and socializing.
• Adam Caulfield is Frank Skeffington's nephew and a cartoonist for a local newspaper, where he draws a comic strip that he created, "Little Simp." He is 33 years old.
• Maeve Caulfield is the wife of Adam Caulfield; she is 22. Her views of Frank Skeffington evolve in the course of the book; but they begin as dislike and suspicion of him, due to her upbringing.
• Roger Sugrue, Maeve's father, is a bitter critic of Frank Skeffington. His views have shaped his daughter's views.
• Amos Force is the publisher of the leading newspaper and a member of the city's Protestant old- money elite. For personal, political, and family reasons, as well as anti-Irish bigotry, Force loathes Skeffington and is committed to seeing him lose his latest campaign for Mayor.
• Sam Weinberg, one of Skeffington's inner circle, is Jewish and a shrewd political observer. He is worried about Skeffington's chances for re-election.
• John Gorman, another of Skeffington's advisers, is a senior ward boss and a master politician. He is torn between his faith in Skeffington and his cold-eyed political realism.
• Ditto Boland is an obsequious but not very bright supporter of Skeffington. Like many of Skeffington's acolytes, he does his best to mimic his hero's dress, manner of speaking, and personality. He has so few views of his own that he has won the nickname "Ditto" from Skeffington, a nickname that he accepts with pride because his hero has conferred it. Nobody remembers his real first name any longer, and even he seems not to use it. The character is likely based on John (Up-Up) Kelly, an advance man for Curley who earned his nickname by entering rallies ahead of Curley yelling "Up, up, everybody up for the Governor."
• The Cardinal is a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. He and Skeffington grew up together on the same slum street but he has become a bitter opponent of Skeffington, believing that he has disgraced his religion, his fellow Irish, and his office.
• Kevin McCluskey is Skeffington's political opponent, a young and handsome veteran of World War II with virtually no political experience.

Along with Democracy (1880), All the King's Men (1946), and Advise and Consent (1959), The Last Hurrah is among the more successful novels about American politics.[6]

The title '"The Last Hurrah" drew on a common phrase in the English lexicon to mean a swan song or, in politics, the last campaign of a politician.[11][12]

The success of the novel and Tracy's portrayal of the Curley proxy "Skeffington" in the film adaptation as rambunctious but heroic improved the public image the ex-mayor, who was no longer in office by 1956. In addition to giving him new publicity, Curley sued the film's producers and won $46,000. He is now looked upon by some with nostalgia, partly because of the book and the film.[12][13]

U.S. poster of the 1958 film The Last Hurrah

John Ford directed the adaptation. The cast included many fellow Irish-Americans and members of Ford's informal "stock company", including Spencer Tracy, Pat O'Brien, James Gleason, Frank McHugh, Wallace Ford, and Willis Bouchey. Columbia Pictures bought the rights to make this movie from O'Connor for $150,000.[5]

• William M. Bulger, James Michael Curley: A Short Biography with Personal Reminiscences (Boston, 2009).
• Edwin O'Connor, The Last Hurrah (Boston, 1956), p. 330; Lyle W. Dorsett, The Pendergast Machine (New York, 1968), pp. 103–17.
• Dorsett, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the City Bosses (Port Washington, N.Y., 1977).
• Bruce M. Stave, The New Deal and the Last Hurrah: Pittsburgh Machine Politics (Pittsburgh, 1970).
• John M. Allswang, The New Deal and American Politics: A Study in Political Change (New York, 1978), pp. 68–87.
• Charles H. Trout, Boston, the Great Depression and the New Deal (New York, 1977).
• Sidney M. Milkis, "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Transcendence of Partisan Politics", Political Science Quarterly, 100, 3 (Fall, 1985): 492-99.
• A. James Reichley, The Life of the Parties: A History of American Political Parties (New York, 1992), pp. 258–62.