Political Campaign

With this set of basic tools, you'll be on your way to taking the field in America's most exciting sport: politics! Take a peek behind the curtain at the same strategies and game plans used by America's most successful political consultants and campaign managers.

In Essay 63, with characteristic wit and acuity, Don Watson takes us on a journey into the heart of the United States in the year 2016. Plunging into the apparent chaos of the presidential campaign and tracing America's recent past, he puts Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders in a larger frame. He considers the irresistible pull - for Americans - of American exceptionalism, and asks whether this creed is reaching its limit.

Ever since Donald Trump entered the presidential race - in a press conference attended by paid actors, in which he slandered Mexican immigrants - he has dominated headlines, becoming the unrestrained id at the center of one of the most bizarre and alarming elections in American history. It was not always so. In 1996, longtime New Yorker writer Mark Singer was conscripted by his editor to profile Donald Trump. At that time Trump was a mere Manhattan-centric megalomaniac, a failing casino operator mired in his second divorce.

In The Second Amendment, Michael Waldman traces the ongoing argument on gun rights from the Bill of Rights to the current day. Now, in The Fight to Vote, Waldman takes a succinct and comprehensive look at an even more crucial struggle: the past and present effort to define and defend government based on "the consent of the governed". From the writing of the Constitution, and at every step along the way, as Americans sought the right, others have fought to stop them.

Politics has changed. Five years ago Britain had a coalition government built on compromise. Now the Conservatives rule unchallenged, a chasm has opened up between Left and Right and the centre ground is deserted. Nick Clegg knows the volatile state of modern politics better than anyone else.

As Americans face the ongoing war against terrorists and their state sponsors around the world, Sean Hannity reminds us we must also cope with the continuing scourge of accommodation and cowardice at home. With his trademark blend of passion and hard-hitting commentary, he urges Americans to recognize the dangers of putting our faith in toothless "multilateralism" when the times call for decisive action.

In 2012, he skewered "amateur" Barack Obama. In 2014, he revealed vicious infighting between the Obamas and the Clintons. Now, New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter Edward Klein turns his attention to Hillary Clinton and asks: why exactly is Hillary so unlikeable?

New York Times best-selling author Tony Blankley prescribes a three-pronged approach as key to America's success in previous wars that must be "rediscovered" today. The political-correctness crowd will complain, but Blankley argues that this conservative manifesto to reestablish American grit is essential - our nation's very survival depends on it.

Direct democracy can no longer be thought of as something that belongs to the future.... This is the scarcely believable story of how, in just over three years, a political dotcom grew to become one of the most powerful forces in the affairs of a country of 60 million people. At the general election in Italy this year, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement, which has its headquarters on a website, took a quarter of the vote - more than Silvio Berlusconi’s party.

The race is on, and Hillary Clinton is looking to transform herself into a candidate that middle-Americans might elect as our first woman president. Can she do it? Positioning herself for her 2008 presidential run, Hillary has put away the trappings of a liberal and wrapped herself in a cloak of moderation. The senator who had been one of the stars of the Democratic Party's left wing is now being packaged as a centrist, which castigates any attempts to expose her real agenda.

Hillary Clinton is running for the presidency with a message of hope and change. But, as Doug Henwood makes clear in this concise, devastating indictment, little trust can be placed in her campaign promises. Rigorously reviewing her record, Henwood shows how Clinton's positions on key issues have always blown with the breeze of expediency, though generally around an axis of moralism and hawkishness.

Donald Trump's rise from unlikely candidate to Republican presidential nominee has been one of the most chaotic, confusing campaigns in American history, and the country is still struggling to make sense of it all. But when looking for insight into Trump's candidacy, it's not his career as a developer or a reality show host - or the history of presidential politics - that provides the most insight: it's his time in the pro wrestling ring.

In May 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart seemed a lock for the party’s presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. Then, in one tumultuous week, rumors of marital infidelity and a newspaper’s stakeout of Hart’s home resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which had never been seen. Through the spellbindingly reported story of the senator’s fall from grace, Matt Bai, Yahoo News columnist and former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, reveals the Hart affair to be far more than one man’s tragedy.

From the birth of our nation to the recent crushing defeat of the first female presidential candidate, this book highlights women's impact on United States politics and government. It documents the fight for women's right to vote, drawing on historic research, biographies of leaders, and such original sources as documents, posters, ads, and buttons. It presents this often-forgotten struggle in an accessible, conversational, relevant manner for a wide audience.

In his astonishing new book, Edward Klein uncovers the real story behind Hillary's email scandals and the dirty political games that have kept her one step ahead of the law - for now. Klein reveals what the FBI's team of 150+ investigators really found on Clinton's server. How Comey originally threatened to resign over White House attempts to intervene in the investigation, and his secret plan to go around the Justice Department if needed.

Politics as usual - isn't anymore. Tear up what you know or think you know about politics. It's all changing. Today, information, opinion, and raw data abound on the Internet, unfiltered and unvarnished by press secretaries, reporters or spin doctors. The Internet has sent the information revolution into reverse, letting us talk back to our political leaders, and the result is a cultural revolution.

According to Bernard Goldberg, the media crossed an important line in the 2008 presidential race, moving from their usual unthinking liberal bias to crass partisanship of the crudest kind, practically acting as spin doctors for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. In A Slobbering Love Affair, his most provocative book yet, Goldberg demonstrates how the media launched an unparalleled effort to ensure the election of the man they regarded as the One.

In this presidential contest of diametric opposites, nothing is certain on the path to the polls - except that every word matters. Direct from the candidates, from point and counterpoint to wit and wisdom, an unvarnished conversation on the issues captivating the American electorate.

The arduous, often unpredictable journey to the US presidency has attracted some of the most unique characters in history. With "unusual" presidential candidates grabbing headlines for the foreseeable future, Contenders shines a welcome spotlight on individuals who felt inspired to offer their uncommon perspectives and special talents to lead the nation.

In the last decade, incompetent leadership has done more to change the face of our world than perhaps in any other time in history. Recent events like Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq have proven that blind faith in our rulers is more than foolish - it can be downright dangerous. The world has grown more complicated and more volatile, and making intelligent decisions about the people in charge has never been more crucial.