What It Takes: The Way to the White House.

CRAMER, Richard Ben.

Item Number: 103877

New York: Random House, 1992.

First edition of “quite possibly the finest book on presidential politics ever written, combining meticulous reporting and compelling, at times soaringly lyrical, prose” (Cleveland Plain Dealer). Octavo, original half cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “For Ambassador Frank Wisner, Who’s probably known enough Presidents to know What It Takes. Richard Ben Cramer Christmas 1999.” The recipient Frank Wisner is a career diplomat who served as Ambassador to Zambia, Egypt, the Philippines and India. Fine in a near fine dust jacket.

An American Iliad in the guise of contemporary political reportage, What It Takes penetrates the mystery at the heart of all presidential campaigns: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that makes a true candidate? As he recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 presidential race -- and scours the psyches of contenders from George Bush and Robert Dole to Michael Dukakis and Gary Hart -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer comes up with the answers, in a book that is vast, exhaustively researched, exhilarating, and sometimes appalling in its revelations.