Political Campaigns, Buttons, and Elections

The ghost of Al Smith -- The lay of the land -- First skirmishes -- Preparing for battle -- Mobilizing the troops -- Guerilla warfare -- A lion in a den of Daniels -- The endgame.

The meteoric rise: 1913-1953 -- One of the common people: 1913-1945 -- Into the arena: 1945-1950 -- Vertical ascent: 1950-1952 -- The travails of the fox: 1952-1953 -- The ordeal of ambition: 1953-1968 -- The chief apprentice: 1953-1956 -- The regent and the striver: 1956-1959 -- Defeat and endurance: 1959-1963 -- The triumph of survival: 1963-1968 -- The pursuit of peace: 1968-1972 -- Tumult and victory: 1968-1969 -- The silent majority: 1969-1970 -- Calming the nation: 1970-1971 -- Waging peace: 1971-1972 -- The indestructible man and myth: 1972- -- The pinnacle: 1972 -- The precipice: 1972-1973 -- The inferno: 1973-1974 -- The transfiguration: 1974-1994.

ebook

The Eisenhower administration and Indochina: 1954-1960 -- No war in Laos: January-June 1961 -- A new effort in Vietnam: January-August 1961 -- War or peace? September-November 1961 -- Limiting the commitment: November 1961-November 1962 -- The war in Vietnam: 1962 -- A gathering storm: January-July 1963 -- The Buddhist crisis and the cable of August 24: 1963 -- The coup: August-November 1963 -- A decision for war: November 1963-April 1964 -- To the Tonkin Gulf: April-August 1964 -- Planning for war: September-December 1964 -- Over the edge: December 1964-March 1965 -- War in secret: March-June 1965 --War in public: June-July 1965 -- Bad history, wrong war -- Epilogue: tragedy and history.

Eisenhower's America -- The Democratic primaries -- The Democratic Convention -- The Republicans -- The South -- The fall campaign -- Kennedy's victory.

July 4, 1976 -- Memories of the Ford Administration -- Détente and its discontents -- Jimmy Carter and the agonies of anti-politics -- Human rights and democratic collapse -- New morning -- Confronting the Evil Empire -- "Call it mysticism if you will" -- "We have an undercover thing": the Iran-Contra Affair -- "Another time, another era" -- Reaganism and realism -- The politics of Clintonism -- Clinton's comeback -- Animosities and interest: the impeachment of Clinton -- Irreparable harm: the election of 2000 -- October 13, 2001.

The lion at the gate -- "The town trembled: from election day to inauguration day" -- Dunkirk -- "Lie, cheat, steal..." -- The shot heard round the world -- Stay the course -- The gathering storm -- The year of living dangerously -- Realignment manqué -- Reagan at the ranch -- The fulcrum: three days in Geneva -- I lift up my lamp: the road to Reykjavik -- "Tempest-tost": the Iran-Contra climax -- Crash -- A mighty woman with a torch -- The Reagan revolution and its discontents.

January -- "My son will be President in 1960" -- "Independent as a hog on ice" -- "You're my boy" -- "Kicked in the head by a horse" -- "When Bobby hates you, you stay hated" -- "I am not a candidate for the vice presidency of anything" -- "An independent merchant competing against a chain store" -- "The rich man's Harold Stassen" -- "Committing a sin against God" -- "A little black bag and a checkbook" -- "All the eggheads are for Stevenson" -- "They were a dime a dozen" -- "A clean bill of health" -- "First blood for Kennedy" -- "We had to win on the first ballot" -- "Too shallow a puddle" -- "I'm not going to die in office" -- "He is not a big man" -- "A two-fisted, four square liar" -- The man who will succeed Dwight D. Eisenhower...Richard E. Nixon" -- "Why do you think they did that, Sammy?" -- "Nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution" -- "Matt Dillon ain't popular for nothing" -- "Nixon did everything but sweep out the plane" -- "I seen him, I seen him" -- "You bombthrowers probably lost the election" -- "The most dangerous man in America" -- "No one could tell him anything" -- "He felt cool, calm, and very alert" -- "They've embalmed him before he even died" -- "The bones of a single American soldier" -- "Senator Kennedy is in clear violation of the spirit of the law" -- "They know not what they do" -- "I'm just out for a little ride" -- "The help of a few close friends" -- "Dies irae."

Election eve, 2000 -- The politics of the perfect tie -- The invisible primary: the marathon begins -- The party nominations: the three-way race -- The interregnum: the four faces of Al Gore -- The final election campaign: roller coaster -- The postelection campaign: Bush v. Gore -- Congressional and state elections -- Electoral reform -- Appendix: the 2000 election vote.

Presidents as candidates: inside the White House for the presidential campaign -- Managing the president's campaign: its evolution 1956-1996 -- Inside the White House for the president's campaign -- What changes when the campaign begins?: short-term effects -- The president's campaign committee -- The National Party organization and campaign planning -- Implications of a White House-centered reelection campaign -- Memorandum to the next president elected in the year of the millennium: what works and what doesn't in a reelection campaign.

The challenge of global leadership -- The mists of victory (and the spawning of clashing historical visions) -- The original sin (and the pitfalls of conventional imagination) -- The impotence of good intentions (and the price of self-indulgence) -- Catastrophic leadership (and the politics of fear) -- Beyond 2008 (and America's second chance) -- Afterthoughts on Iraq and the War on Terror.