Notes

• Includes index
• "This is not your typical campaign book. Smashmouth is Dana Milbank’s hilarious ride on that nasty stretch of road, Campaign 2000. Milbank - a White House correspondent for the Washington Post - follows the candidates, and the also-rans, from the fall of 1998 to the post-election courtrooms and hanging chads. Along the way, Milbank shows us a side of the candidates we’ve never seen - Bush’s exploits aboard a plane that caught on fire, Gore finding a zucchini in an aide’s luggage, John McCain stuffing his pockets with lucky charms, and Bill Bradley putting a university president to sleep." "As in all dramas, the real story about the winners and losers takes place behind the scenes. Milbank shows us the ecology of political campaigns - what is eaten on the trail, who works for the candidates and how they keep their sanity on the job, and just what a room full of Ralph Nader supporters smells like." "Milbank offers a mordant look at our current political conditions, both on and off the campaign trail. He shows us exactly how Bush raided the South, how Gore set himself the impossible task of running as a raging moderate and exactly where McCain - and all the others - lost their way. He also reminds us of the beauty of smashmouth politics, how "tough, negative campaigning helps to strengthen our leaders, boost creativity in policy-making and bring reform to government."" "Wading into Campaign 2000, Dana Milbrank brings it all together like no other reporter, offering readers an irreverent, inside perspective on the closest presidential election in more than a century. Here are the details you wish you had at the time, with all the perspective you need now. Think you know your president? Think again. Now that we’ve finally chosen our next leader, it’s time to go back and figure out how this all happened."–BOOK JACKET