Losers Michael Lewis by Michael Lewis 9780307426680, 0307426688 instant download after payment.

Michael Lewis is a master at dissecting the absurd: after skewering Wall Street in his national bestseller Liar's Poker, he packed his mighty pen and set out on the 1996 campaign trail.  As he follows the men who aspire to the Oval Office, Lewis discovers an absurd mix of bravery and backpedaling, heroic possibility and mealy-mouthed sound bytes, and a process so ridiculous and unsavory that it leaves him wondering if everyone involved—from the journalists to the candidates to the people who voted—isn't ultimately a loser.

The contenders:

Pat Buchanan:  becomes the first politician ever to choose a black hat over a white one.

Phil Gramm: spends twenty million dollars to convince voters of his fiscal responsibility.

John McCain: makes the fatal mistake of actually speaking his mind.

Alan Keyes: checks out of a New Hampshire hotel and tells the manager another candidate will be paying his bill.

Steve Forbes: refuses to answer questions about his father's motorcycles.

Bob Dole: marches through the campaign without ever seeming to care.

   Losers is a wickedly funny, unflinching look at how America really goes about choosing a President.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Michael Lewis, the author of Liar's Poker, which Tom Wolfe called "the funniest book on Wall Street I have ever read," now turns his eye to the peculiar method Americans use to choose their president. Beginning with the 1996 New Hampshire primary, Lewis tagged along with players both major and minor. Keeping his eyes open to the nuances of how campaigns are so carefully managed today, Lewis is able to make some insightful, damning, and often hysterically funny observations. The reporting technique is eccentric--who else would spend so much time with Morry Taylor, a rich man who ran for president in what amounted to a vanity campaign--but it works. Lewis has written a very good book that could be shelved under both humor and public affairs.

Journalist Lewis's (Liar's Poker, LJ 9/1/89) chronicle of the 1996 presidential campaign examines the battle for the Republican Party nomination and the following general election. It differs from most campaign books in that its perspective is "from the bottom of the political food chain." Lewis argues that the leading candidates were so preoccupied with risk avoidance that they failed to address important concerns of the electorate. This meant that to the extent such matters were addressed at all, it was by the lesser candidates. Therefore, Lewis devotes more attention to such minor Republican candidates as Alan Keyes and Morry Taylor and to Green Party candidate Ralph Nader than to Clinton and Dole. His book is not comprehensive, but it provides a frequently humorous and occasionally insightful look into contemporary electoral politics for lay readers.?Thomas H. Ferrell, Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.