The long drawn out and heavily politicised presidential election process in 2000 with the winner Republican George W. Bush taking a smaller percentage of the popular vote that his Democratic rival, raised important issues of legitimacy. The September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington posed a major new challenge to the American political system. Written by a team of authorities and edited to provide an accessible and coherent student text, Developments in American Politics 4 assesses the implications of both and the early record of the second Bush in the White House.