The Quest for the Presidency 1984 [Hardcover]

Peter Goldman (Author), Tony Fuller (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Newsweek book | Publication Date: June 1, 1985

The tumultuous presidential election of 1992 was a moment of historic change in America, and a special team of top Newsweek correspondents witnessed it all from the inside and won a National Magazine Award for the coverage. Here for the first time is the full story, augmented with authentic documents and on-the-scene photographs.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A team of Newsweek reporters virtually lived with the 1992 presidential candidates for more than a year, tracking their respective campaigns. Full of revelations and witty turns of phrase, this crackling report provides a unique window on the contenders' maneuverings, pressures and frustrations. Hillary Clinton, we are told, in effect became her husband's closest campaign adviser, while his handlers systematically devised a rationale for his directionless candidacy, equipping him with a populist message. Bush, a reluctant campaigner who hated confrontations, by this account wanted Quayle off the ticket but could not bring himself to dump the Vice President. Meanwhile, a Bush adviser secretly approached Colin Powell to persuade the general to become Bush's running mate. Led by team anchor DeFrank (Newsweek's deputy Washington bureau chief and senior White House correspondent), the authors do a good job of explaining how Ross Perot tapped into the public's sense of alienation by packaging himself as a pragmatist who could take on bureaucrats and cure the nation's ills through sound business sense. Withering profiles of Jerry Brown, Patrick Buchanan, Paul Tsongas and other contenders round out the chronicle. An appendix reproduces dozens of confidential memoranda and documents from the various campaigns. Photos. 25,000 first printing.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

From the Newsweek reporting team that brought us The Quest for Presidency 1984 (Bantam, 1985) comes an insider account gleaned from extensive interviews with a veritable "Who's Who" of campaign "handlers" and political intimates of participants in the 1988 presidential election. Unlike Jack Germond and Jules Witcover's Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars ( LJ 9/1/89), this book dwells more on Bush and Dukakis than on also-rans Dole, Kemp, Jackson, Robertson, et al. The dirty nature of "handler" politics is similarly bemoaned--the battle for control of the Dukakis campaign between Susan Estrich and John Sasso, for example, is shown to be particularly Byzantine--but concern about the lack of substantive campaign issues isn't as evident as in Germond and Witcover's book. However, this is still a fascinating account. Highly recommended.
- Frank Kessler , Missouri Western State Coll., St. Joseph
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 476 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books; 1st edition (June 1, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553051008
• ISBN-13: 978-0553051001
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,801,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and comprehesive telling of '92 race, August 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Quest for the Presidency 1992 (Hardcover)

It seems unnecessary to point out that this book is only for the true political junkie, since it's unlikely that anyone else would pick up a 700-page book with Clinton, Bush, and Perot on the cover in the first place. But for diehard politicos like myself, this book is a terrific account of the '92 campaign. The lengthy passages on political strategy may be trying for some, but the behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the three major campaigns (not to mention those of Jerry Brown, Pat Buchannan, et al) are fantastic.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thorough Account of the 1992 Presidential Election, August 22, 2009

By 

Douglas C. Childers (Atlanta GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Quest for the Presidency 1992 (Hardcover)

During Ron Paul's pursuit for the White House in 2008, many people attempted to make parallels to his grassroots campaign and that of Ross Perot's. Since I was in middle school during the 1992 election and since there were no other books that I could find that emphasized Perot's 1992 campaign, I decided to read "Quest For the Presidency, 1992".

First off, as every reviewer has noted, this book really is for the political junky. The book details the primaries of both parties as well as the 1992 Presidential Election. The book gives you significant insight into each of the three campaigns as well as the Tsongas, Buchanan and Brown bids to win their parties' nomination.

What it doesn't do is really examine the actual candidates previous to their campaigns. However, the book takes on a narrative feel and makes the political process much more entertaining than I would have anticipated. I was surprised to find out that Perot didn't really cost the election for Bush (as many Republicans have maintained), but instead made the results much more respectable for Bush. The author's painted the Perot campaign as simply a revolt against the established political parties and portrayed Perot as someone who outlined problems without giving solutions, something I was surprised to find out. The authors' characterization of Clinton and Bush were not much better. Clinton is portrayed as a un-trust worthy politician from a suffering state and Bush is shown as a disinterested, out-of-touch, career politician that never had a plan and could never reach the general public. (Given these two characterizations, its no wonder Perot had so much success.)

All in all, if you are looking for a detailed account of the 1992 election, I can't imagine a more thorough book is out there on the subject. If you are looking for more of a background on Ross Perot, this book only gives a small glimpse into the man and primarily focuses on his efforts within this campaign.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Quest, May 28, 2010

By 

Marc Korman (Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Quest for the Presidency 1992 (Hardcover)

Since 1960, books written from inside presidential campaigns have become commonplace. The Quest series was, I believe, around for three presidential elections (1984, 1988, and 1992) before Newsweek slimmed down the format and stopped using the Quest label. I'm not sure why they abandoned it after 1992, as I found this book to be very strong.

I have watched the War Room and read a few other books about the 1992 election, but not dealt with it so comprehensively. This book even gave careful attention to candidacies that were over before they began like Virginia Governor Wilder's. All of the major candidates get comprehensive treatment here, from Clinton, Bush, and Perot on down to Tsongas, Buchanan, Kerrey, Harkin, and Brown. It is hard to tell with books written this way how accurate the dialog is, since it is unlikely the authors really transcribed some of these conversations word for word. But their take feels right.

As another reviewer commented, this book also disputed what I had long been told about the 1992 election, that Clinton only won because Perot was present. If this book is to be believed, Clinton would have won in a landslide without Perot as they combined the anti-Bush vote.

One downside to the book, and perhaps to modern presidential campaigns, is its use of the campaign's own focus groups to get reactions. Instead of talking to voters in New Hampshire or other important states, the authors use the campaigns focus groups to get reactions. The book does note at one point that focus groups can kill creative ideas, but that does not stop what I thought was the book's over reliance on them.

That quibble aside, the book takes you from Bush's highs in 1990 to his defeat in 1992, giving careful consideration to all his would-be successors, the strange Perot insurgency that is now almost forgotten, the effort to kick Quayle off the ticket, and much, much more.


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Amazon does not want to separate the Quest for the Presidency 1984, 1988, and 1992, so in case anyone is looking for a review of the '84 or '88 editions, here they are:

1984-I highly recommend it. It is not quite as long and detailed as 92, but does give ample attention to Hart, Jackson, Mondale, Glenn, and Reagan, with some acknowledgement of the presence of Cranston and Hollings. The book does a nice job of demonstrating the virtual inevitability of Reagan's reelection while painting Mondale in a good light. It also presents Geraldine Ferraro, the first of two woman VP nominees thus far, in a much more positive fashion than most studies have since then. Perhaps most interesting is the treasure trove of campaign memos in the back of the book and the discussion of former President Nixon's interactions with Reagan and his team, including a letter to buck Reagan up after his first, troubled '84 debate.

1988-Another good entry in the series covering all of the candidates (unlike the longer, somewhat superior, and much more detailed "What It Takes" about the same election). The '88 campaign was a lot dirtier than the few that proceeded it, with George Bush using a combination of attack ads and the Dukakis campaign's own ineptitude to turn a huge deficit into a 40 state victory. The Dukakis campaign comes off extremely poorly here: dysfunctional, insular, and unresponsive. Susan Estrich, who took over the campaign during the primaries when Dukakis' right hand man was forced out by scandal, fares especially poorly. Reading about the Bush campaign's views of Quayle is particularly interesting when you realize he was the sitting VP when this was published. Jim Baker and others pulled no punches in presenting their limited view of him to the reporters who wrote this book. As with the other Quest books, this starts about two years before the election and follows the major and not so major candidates (including Pat Schroeder, Gary Hart, Al Gore, Paul Simon, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, Bob Dole, Pat Robertson, Al Haig, Dukakis, and Bush) all the way to the night of the election.