Before Game Change there was What It Takes, a ride along the 1988 campaign trail and "possibly the best [book] ever written about an American election" (NPR).

Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times-bestselling author Richard Ben Cramer, What It Takes is "a perfect-pitch rendering of the emotions, the intensity, the anguish, and the emptiness of what may have been the last normal two-party campaign in American history" (Time).

An up-close, in-depth look at six candidates -- George H. W. "Poppy" Bush, Bob Dole, Joe Biden, Michael Dukakis, Richard Gephardt, and Gary Hart -- this account of the 1988 US presidential campaign explores a unique moment in history, with details on everything from Bush at the Astrodome to Hart's Donna Rice scandal. Cramer also addresses the question we find ourselves pondering every four years: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that allows them to throw their hat in the ring as a candidate for leadership of the free world?

Exhaustively researched from thousands of hours of interviews, What It Takes creates powerful portraits of these Republican and Democratic contenders, and the consultants, donors, journalists, handlers, and hangers-on who surround them, as they meet, greet, and strategize their way through primary season chasing the nomination, resulting in "a hipped-up amalgam of Teddy White, Tom Wolfe, and Norman Mailer" (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

With timeless insight that helps us understand the current state of the nation, this "ultimate insider's book on presidential politics" explores what helps these people survive, what makes them prosper, what drives them, and ultimately, what drives our government -- human beings, in all their flawed glory (San Francisco Chronicle).

• We started tracking this book on October 14, 2011.
• This book was $9.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 281 times in the past 4,792 days.
• The current price of this book is $2.99 last checked one hour ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past year.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on January 14, 2022.
• This book has been $1.99 15 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $15.86 last reached on February 1, 2024.
• This book has been $15.86 one time since we started tracking it.

• History
• HistoryUnited States20th Century
• FranceCampaigns & Elections

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 1,581 Pages
• File Size: 3,655 KB