Covering the election year from his couch, William O'Rourke reproduces and dissects the characters and issues awash in the ever flowing media stream: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, Internet, phone and fax, conversation, and popular entertainment. "Every campaign gets the book it deserves," O'Rourke writes, "and the '96 presidential campaign deserves the one in your hand.".

Campaign America '96 reveals how the presidential campaign is consumed, not produced. Part autobiography, part chronicle, part incisive political analysis, part cultural history, Campaign America '96 parades the entire year's cast of characters across its stage.

Minor and major actors take their bows, from the ineffably nontelegenic millionaire, Steve Forbes, to the ever coy Colin Powell, to sideshow contenders like Ross Perot ("Harry Truman on Ritalin"), along with the media guys and dolls who cover them, to the final showdown between Hillary and Liddy, the First Lady and the First Nurse, and Citizen Bob and Commander-in-Chief Bill.