The issues we face as a nation may not vary much over time - the economy, welfare, education, crime, the environment, a balanced budget - but occasionally the way we understand and confront them changes dramatically. With Washington in gridlock and voters disenchanted with empty political rhetoric, Tommy Thompson has proven that state government can be the most effective agent of change.

In a decade as governor of Wisconsin, Thompson has transformed the state and renewed the relationship between people and government. Now, in a book that will influence and invigorate the 1996 elections - and shape the nation's political agenda for a long time to come - Thompson has opened the door to his remarkable laboratory of democracy.

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Thompson's vision of a government connected and responsive to the people was born at home in Elroy, Wisconsin, where his father held town meetings in his corner grocery store, and is firmly rooted in the rich political history of the Midwest, where the Progressive movement took hold nearly a century ago.

Time after time, Thompson has put his commonsense ideas to the test - taking on existing programs; experimenting with revolutionary approaches; and rewriting the rules and fundamental tenets of welfare, public education, and government spending, to name just a few. He has accomplished at a state level what still seems impossible on a national level: improving the lives of ordinary people.

Power to the People is a genuinely new, truly American story, one that weaves together articulate ideas and bold actions. It is a fascinating, eye-opening look at what states can achieve - and the most compelling evidence that they should be allowed to try.

Thompson breathes life into the crucial, often overlooked words of the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."