The Choice: How Bill Clinton Won

by Bob Woodward

Paperback, 2005

Status

Available

Publication

Simon & Schuster (2005)

Description

The Choice is Bob Woodward's classic story of the quest for power, focusing on the 1996 presidential campaign as a case study of money, public opinion polling, attack advertising, handlers, consultants, and decision making in the midst of electoral uncertainty. President Bill Clinton is examined in full in the contest with Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the Republican presidential nominee. The intimacy and detail of Woodward's account of the candidates and their wives show the epic human struggle in this race for the White House.

User reviews

LibraryThing member mramos
Bob Woodward did a great job of giving us a view of what the candidates and their families have to go through during the political process of getting elected. All the decisions that must be made. From whether or not to even run. When to announce, who to hire on staff, raising fuds and advertising.
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Woodward had direct contact and interviews with all the candidates excpet Clinton. Where he had to rely on the President's staff and friends.

The book covers all the candidates that try for the nomination, including those that would have been considered but chose not to run. A very interesting insight into the process of running for our most powerful elected office. The book eventually comes down to the campign between Dole and Clinton.

Woodward is known for being very accurate and tapes all his interviews. This is the first book of his that I have read. And I will now try to pick up and read the Agenda next.
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LibraryThing member jmcclain19
This type of book may be where I enjoy Woodward the most - using his prose to make an election who's outcome was seemingly a foregone conclusion from the outset exciting, amusing and above all interesting. The Choice was an insightful and eye opening look into the election process.
LibraryThing member lesserbrain
Woodward paints an intimate picture of the inner workings of an otherwise lackluster and boring 1996 presidential campaign. Clinton and team work on building a strong message but the weak challenge by the Dole/Kemp team, I think provided a true lack of foil in the story.
LibraryThing member gopfolk
I always love reading books about politics...this one only brought back the bad taste of the dole campaign.
The book was well written (no surprise there) and truly captured the people in a way that put them outside of the media's spotlight.
From the onset you could see that Dole would not win...the
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background information on the campaign and what was going on behind closed doors was felt by those of us working the other end of the campaign.
If you want to know some of the back story about the 1996 campaign...then this is the book.
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Language

Original language

English

Barcode

8558
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