The Running Mate - Softcover

Klein, Joe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385335601 ISBN 13: 9780385335607

Publisher: Delta, 2001

Synopsis

Hailed as "astonishingly powerful" by The New York Times, and "written perfectly" by The Washington Post, Joe Klein's #1 bestseller, Primary Colors, was the most-talked-about political novel of the past century. Now acclaimed journalist and author Joe Klein returns with another brilliant and slyly subversive novel set in the gladiatorial arena he knows so well: politics in modern-day America.

U.S. senator Charlie Martin is a hot political property, dashing, honorable, irreverent -- and a decorated Vietnam veteran. The Running Mate follows this brash hero on a wild, exhilarating ride through the minefields of politics as usual.

But as Charlie quickly learns, combat is a cakewalk compared with the battles waged by free men in pursuit of glory and power. For Charlie's political star is beginning to wane ... a bid for the presidency ends in failure ... a young campaign volunteer's father decks him -- in front of the cameras ... a well-kept secret from Charlie's Vietnam days is revealed ... and a woman has entered his life -- one who loves him but is appalled by his life's work.

Suddenly Charlie must confront the two greatest challenges of his life -- a political opponent who has no scruples and a dazzling, unconventional woman who may force him to choose between love and politics. Charlie's dilemma is one that has come to haunt contemporary American politics: Is it possible to be a good politician and a good man?

About this title

Review:

Senator Charlie Martin, the slightly John McCain-like war hero of Joe Klein's The Running Mate, thought getting blown up in Vietnam was tough, but presidential politics proves the uglier jungle battlefield. Charlie blows his challenge to the incumbent, Jack Stanton (the delightfully slimy protagonist of Klein's roman à clef about Clinton's 1992 campaign), by refusing to smear Stanton for his affair with his wife's stylist, "the Happy Hairdresser". Then he brushes a campaign worker's breast--by accident--and gets punched on TV by her irate dad. Charlie does, however, revive his career by springing a veteran named Mustafa from a Vietnamese prison, and soon he's on Stanton's shortlist for politicking to get an old war buddy named defence secretary. In this political novel par excellence, skeletons dance out of practically everybody's closet. Charlie's vivid trip back to Vietnam turns up a son he sired in a one-night stand; his wickedly droll, still healthy Southern press secretary is HIV positive; Mustafa has society re-entry problems; major politicians turn out to be closet pill heads, booze hounds, or rapists of staffers ("Apparently, she suffered an involuntary loss of her virginity in the Cannon Building"). Even Republicans hoard deadly secrets. And politics isn't about policies, it's about artful Machiavellian manoeuvres, back-stabbing, and feeding scandals to ignorant, arrogant press know-it-alls. (You can't say Klein lacks chutzpah!) Ornery but honest Charlie finds politics "becoming more noxious and also more sterile as the century staggered home". One politico says, "It's a big game hunt, and we're the game....The jungle'll be left to pygmies and hyenas."

Klein hails and nails Stanton/Clinton for skilful cynicism: "He was all yak-butter and horseshit," says Charlie. Fans of Primary Colours will love this book's raffish authenticity. But the canvas is vaster--the Vietnam chapter is as evocative as the American ones--the story sprawls Tom Wolfe-ishly, and Klein is not just scoring points, he's a moralist hunting big game. --Tim Appelo

Review:

Praise for Primary Colors

"An absolutely dazzling book, the best political novel in many years, one that manages to be simultaneously cynical and redemptive, funny and profound, reportorial, satirical, and thrilling."
-- Christopher Buckley, The New Yorker

"Breaks all the rules and lives to tell about it ... there is a wonderful honesty about [Primary Colors], a refusal to give into the conventional interpretation of people and events that cripples so much that is written about politics."
-- Michael Lewis, The New York Times Book Review

"This sensitively wrought, deftly drawn, acid-tongued political novel ... is the best aides' eye view of politics since All the King's Men."
-- Walter Shapiro, Time

"The dialogue throws sparks, capturing perfectly the lingo of political professionals.... [The author] is a writer of considerable gifts; he has intimate knowledge of the political world."
-- Andrew Ferguson, The Wall Street Journal

"A delight to read. The author knows politics ... and writes like a dream."
-- Alex Beam, The Boston Globe

"The rollicking new satire ... Primary Colors gives the reader an entertaining, inside and often very funny look at the daily workings of a political campaign."
-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"[The author] has matched Teddy White. Nowadays, only fiction can do justice to the truth."
-- Richard Cohen, The Washington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Delta
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385335601
• ISBN 13: 9780385335607
• Binding: Paperback