The Running Mate, Joe Klein
The Running Mate, Joe Klein
List: $12.95 | Sale: $9.07
Club: $6.47

The Running Mate

Author: Joe Klein

Narrator: Anthony Heald

Abridged: 5 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/05/2000


Synopsis

Hailed as "astonishingly powerful" by The New York Times, and "written perfectly" by The Washington Post, Joe Klein's #1 bestseller, Primary Colors, was the most-talked-about political novel of the past century. Now acclaimed journalist and author Joe Klein returns with another brilliant and slyly subversive novel set in the gladiatorial arena he knows so well: politics in modern-day America.

U.S. senator Charlie Martin is a hot political property, dashing, honorable, irreverent -- and a decorated Vietnam veteran. The Running Mate follows this brash hero on a wild, exhilarating ride through the minefields of politics as usual.

But as Charlie quickly learns, combat is a cakewalk compared with the battles waged by free men in pursuit of glory and power. For Charlie's political star is beginning to wane ... a bid for the presidency ends in failure ... a young campaign volunteer's father decks him -- in front of the cameras ... a well-kept secret from Charlie's Vietnam days is revealed ... and a woman has entered his life -- one who loves him but is appalled by his life's work.

Suddenly Charlie must confront the two greatest challenges of his life -- a political opponent who has no scruples and a dazzling, unconventional woman who may force him to choose between love and politics. Charlie's dilemma is one that has come to haunt contemporary American politics: Is it possible to be a good politician and a good man?

About The Author

Joe Klein is a political columnist for Time, formerly a staff writer for The New Yorker, and the author of the novels Primary Colors and The Running Mate, as well as of two nonfiction books – Woody Guthrie: A Life and Payback: Five Marines After Vietnam.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Patricia on May 24, 2008

There's a certain genre of movies I refer to as the "white men in suits" movies. They are the kind of movies where many of the main characters look alike and not much is done to differentiate them. I'm always slightly confused during these films, because the characters are so interchangeable. So in......more

Goodreads review by Kristal on December 01, 2015

There's nothing really wrong with this book, it's just that the veil has been pulled back in the years since it's been published. The intrigues of being a candidate and the constant drama that results from the vetting process for a national political position are now well known (or, at least, no sur......more

Goodreads review by Ray on January 12, 2013

In his brilliant Primary Colors, Joe Klein wrote a thinly disguised account of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign with the author listed as "Anonymous". He had been outed by the time this sequel - a thinly disguised account of the machinations of John McCain's campaign - appeared. Without the......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on December 09, 2007

This is a topical novel by Joe Klein, the author of the best-seller, Primary Colors (published anonymously at the time). I selected it as a fun read during the current primary season and enjoyed all of the political "insider" stuff. It was much more vibrantly written than the Jim Lehrer novel that I......more


Quotes

Praise for Primary Colors:

"An absolutely dazzling book, the best political novel in many years, one that manages to be simultaneously cynical and redemptive, funny and profound, reportorial, satirical, and thrilling."
-- Christopher Buckley, The New Yorker

"Breaks all the rules and lives to tell about it ... there is a wonderful honesty about [Primary Colors], a refusal to give into the conventional interpretation of people and events that cripples so much that is written about politics."
-- Michael Lewis, The New York Times Book Review

"This sensitively wrought, deftly drawn, acid-tongued political novel ... is the best aides' eye view of politics since All the King's Men."
-- Walter Shapiro, Time

"The dialogue throws sparks, capturing perfectly the lingo of political professionals.... [The author] is a writer of considerable gifts; he has intimate knowledge of the political world."
-- Andrew Ferguson, The Wall Street Journal

"A delight to read. The author knows politics ... and writes like a dream."
-- Alex Beam, The Boston Globe

"The rollicking new satire ... Primary Colors gives the reader an entertaining, inside and often very funny look at the daily workings of a political campaign."
-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"[The author] has matched Teddy White. Nowadays, only fiction can do justice to the truth."
-- Richard Cohen, The Washington Post