Buck Up, Suck Up . . . and Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room

The political strategists who directed the Clinton campaign’s War Room reveal the lessons and secrets from their hard-fought battles -- and how to use these highly effective strategies for success in business and everyday life.
James Carville and Paul Begala have waged political war all across America and on three continents. They’ve won some of the most spectacular political victories of the twentieth century and lost a few campaigns too. Along the way, they’ve learned a few lessons. Some sound simple, like ＂Never Quit,＂ some comic, like ＂Kiss Ass,＂ and some are more complicated and nuanced, like ＂Strategy Ain’t Tactics.＂ But each lesson contains tried-and-true wisdom, illustrated with colorful stories from long political experience:
- Find out how Carville’s mother used a bass boat to ＂frame the debate＂ in
selling encyclopedias.
- Learn the War Room tricks for sharpening your message and delivering the perfect sound bite.
- Discover what success secret Hillary Rodham Clinton and Tom DeLay share.
- And much more.
Whether you are a senior executive or a secretary, a political junkie or the president of the United States, the rules to live by can be found in Buck Up, Suck Up...and Come Back When You Foul Up.

James Carville is the best-known and most-loved political consultant in American history. He is also a speaker, talk-show host, actor, and author with six New York Times bestsellers to his credit. Part of a large Southern family, he grew up without a television and loved to listen to the stories his mama told. Mr. Carville lives with his wife, Mary Matalin, and their two daughters in New Orleans.

Paul Begala was a chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, which carried thirty-three states and made Bill Clinton the first Democrat to win the White House in sixteen years. He served as counselor to the president in the Clinton White House, where he coordinated policy, politics, and communications. He is the author of four books, including Is Our Children Learning?: The Case Against George W. Bush; It’s Still the Economy, Stupid; and Buck Up, Suck Up...and Come Back When You Foul Up (with James Carville). Begala is a CNN political commentator and a research professor of public policy at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. Paul earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas, where he was student body president. He and his wife live quietly in Virginia with their four boys and a German shepherd. (Okay, so they don’t live too quietly.)