This brash and rollicking autobiography is a potent primer of the rough-and-tumble world of political consulting by one of its founding fathers and preeminent experts. A cross between a patriotic redneck raconteur and a TV-savvy renaissance man, Raymond D. Strother is unafraid to name names and refuses to mince words in tales of what he calls the beauty and gore of American politics. From the crash course in Louisiana politics and corruption he received following graduate school to his compelling entry into the big-time senatorial and congressional races of the 1970s and early 1980s and his adventures with candidates Clinton, Gore, and Hart and famous consultants Dick Morris and James Carville, Strother offers a wildly entertaining, controversial, but finally optimistic political and media success story that will thrill and inspire anyone spellbound by American politics.