How to get elected--and live to tell the tale

Bill Rauch has lived an unusual political life: a decade as press secretary, advance man, and confidant to New York mayor Ed Koch, followed by a decade as city councilman and now as mayor of Beaufort, South Carolina.

In this account of the ways and means of local politics, Rauch contends that a great city and an antebellum town pose the same challenge-that of blending blood sport and selfless public service day in and day out. How to get elected, run a meeting, work the room, and take credit when it is due; how to ward off threats from rivals and control the agenda; how to look good on camera, leak stories, and shape press coverage to your advantage: Rauch illustrates these crucial points of political life with vivid and often hilarious inside stories from his tenure in New York and in Beaufort.

Politicking is a winning blend of political primer and personal chronicle; more than that, it is an unusually candid account of how the political game is played-and won-in America today.