Power Plays

Dick Morris is one of the frankest and most incisive political observers in America today. A fiercely intelligent presidential advisor and a popular columnist and political analyst for the Fox News Channel, Morris now brings his brilliant strategic mind to this fascinating survey of the most dramatic political moves in history. Morris identifies five types of power play and focuses on politicians whose careers have skyrocketed after implementing one of them successfully -- or foundered in the wake of misjudgment. He chronicles both the wildly effective and the disastrous, from ideologues like Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill, who stood on principle and waited for their moment to shine, to the disavowal of environmental issues that, he argues, cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. The result is an irreverent and enlightening playbook that holds lessons equally valuable to the planning of a political campaign, a business venture -- or even George W. Bush's War on Terror.