TRICKY DICK AND THE PINK LADY: RICHARD NIXON VS. HELEN GAHAGAN DOUGLAS--SEXUAL POLITICS AND THE RED SCARE, 1950

TRICKY DICK AND THE PINK LADY: RICHARD NIXON VS. HELEN GAHAGAN DOUGLAS -- SEXUAL POLITICS AND THE RED SCARE, 1950 Greg Mitchell (Random House, $25) The dirtiest campaign Nixon ever ran -- and one, notes historian Mitchell, that negatively affected future female candidates -- was the 1950 California Senate race against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, a brilliant protegee of Eleanor Roosevelt and former Hollywood actress. Mitchell lucidly paints the commie-loathing, McCarthy-spooked climate that enabled Nixon to cleverly but unfairly red-bait his moderate Democratic opponent, while undermining her with subtle sexist and anti-Semitic slurs (Douglas' husband was Jewish). Before her defeat, Douglas struck back by reviving the immortal Nixon nickname ''Tricky Dick.'' A history of politics most slimy that's also a page-turner. A-