In this follow-up to his 1992 work, The Bill Clinton Story: Winning the Presidency, John Hohenberg examines the reasons behind the troubled campaign of Bob Dole and his relationship with the brash Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He scrutinizes the two government furloughs that handicapped the Republican Congress and a gridlock that was narrowly averted.

From the direction of welfare reform, the everpresent whitewater scandal and its targets, disaster relief efforts, and the anti-tobacco legislation, Hohenberg shows how each issue figured prominentiy in the Presidential campaign.