Rating: 
Summary: Sharp and witty satire of presidential politics.
Review: Jeff Greenfield wrote "The People's Choice" in 1995. His book did not attract much attention then. The off-the-wall scenarios that Greenfield presents in this book seem to be a little less outlandish after our 2000 Presidential election fiasco. "The People's Choice" deals with a very close presidential race, which is won by the Republican candidates, MacArthur Foyle and his dim-bulb running mate, Ted Block. The problem arises when, in a photo-op, Foyle takes a fall from a horse, with disastrous consequences. The author explores the mysteries of the Electoral College, asking such pertinent questions as, "Who are the electors?" "How closely are they bound to voting for the candidate of their party?" "What kind of mayhem would ensue if the electors started a revolt and refused to vote for their party's candidate?" All of a sudden, after the recent debacle in Florida, these questions have real meaning. Greenfield's dialogue is devilishly savage and witty. He knows Washington politics inside and out. Greenfield presents a colorful cast of characters, including the super-reporter, Al DeRossa, the Machiavellian kingmaker, Jack Petitcon, whose behind the scenes machinations wreak havoc, and Dorothy Ledger, the elector from Michigan who nearly causes a Constitutional crisis. Greenfield deals with other interesting questions as well, such as, "What price does a politician pay for selling his soul to his party or to special interest groups?" and "What price do the reporters and campaign workers pay for slavishly following the candidates for weeks and months on end?" Satire is not easy to pull off, but in "The People's Choice," Greenfield does a fine job of examining our political system with a humorous and knowing eye.
Rating: 
Summary: choppy,dry,boring...I should have known better.
Review: Jeff,Jeff,Jeff...take some writing lessons, will you. Geez, I can't get past the first three chapters without falling asleep. The characters are a mishmash, and the story line is nonexistant. I want my money back.
Rating:
Summary: GROSSLY OVERRATED
Review: Mr. Greenfield has received accolades for a "brilliant" book, especially after the 2000 election. I thought the book was a very interesting concept that was poorly developed. Early in the book he introduced various characters who, for whatever reason, failed to materialize in any substance in the book. Most notable cases include the losing candidate who could have launched a challenge to the vice-president elect and the flamboyant civil rights leader could have made this book interesting. The "solution" at the end of the book was woefully implausible. Mr. Greenfield introduced a fascinating topic for a book and fell well short of a fascinating book. He could have easily doubled the length of the book, made it more believable (and humorous), and made it more entertaining than he did. There was so much Mr. Greenfield could have done with this topic and instead Mr. Greenfield did so little. I read the book before the 2000 election and was sorely disappointed and any analogy between the book and the 2000 election is nothing more than a cheap effort to capitalize on a bizarre event.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting and surprisingly well written.
Review: Okay, I'll admit it -- thriller novels turning on obscure parts of the Constitution aren't all that common. But I enjoyed this book and -- as a professor of Constitutional Law -- I've often assigned excerpts as a way of illustrating that obscure parts of the Constitution really *do* matter. (Eric Harry's "Arc Light" is another that gets similar service). But even if you don't teach Constitutional Law you are likely to find Greenfield's book interesting and enjoyable. The ending is a bit implausible, but heck, it's fiction. A good read, at least for political/legal junkies like me.
Rating:
Summary: Explores the gray area between politics and the Constitution
Review: THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE is a rare find -- a political thriller that plausibly explores the gray area between politics and the Constitution.As a constitutional historian who had to endure much heat and almost no light during the convulsions of November-December 2000, I returned to this book gratefully. Greenfield is right on target with his assessment of the ways in which the media desperately seek to fork over simple answers, whether true or false, to unexpected political and constitutional quandaries. He is also deadly accurate in his assessment of the workings of the electoral college. Mindless celebration of the achievements of the beloved Founding Fathers do violence to the history made by the generation who framed and adopted the Constitution. The original expectations underlying the Electoral College disintegrated within a decade of its adoption. Its architects expected it to select a pool of candidates from whom the House would choose the President and Vice President. They did not expect the rise of national partisan competition for the Presidency, nor that the Electoral College would actually agree on winners of Presidential elections most of the time. Interested readers should consult Lawrence Longley's and Neal Peirce's THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE PRIMER 2000 (Yale, 1999). We have seen an increasing mismatch between the expectations of the Revolutionary generation for the constitutional system and the system's actual workings over time. Such books as THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE are therefore valuable, even essential reading. -- R. B. Bernstein, adjunct professor of law, New York Law School
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent story, which could have been told better
Review: The story behind The People's Choice, is excellent, and the subtitle, "A Cautionary Tale", is right on the mark. I read the book knowing full well what it was about (the jacket on my hardcover edition gives away the basic plot), but to see the machinations behind the unfolding story was worth plodding through the ambling style of Greenfield's writing. This is a black comedy, but sometimes the humor seemed forced. Greenfield has a wealth of knowledge to put to paper, and at times he over did it, with too much detail. I also found some of the characters unbelievable, even keeping the comedic tone in mind. All in all, though, for any student of the Constitution and electoral politics, it is a fascinating read. Really deserves 3.5 stars, not 4...
Rating:
Summary: Some people write academic articles, he wrote a novel
Review: The U.S. Constitution is full of quirks and oddities. (To see what law professors have to say, take a look at "Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies," a collection of essays about what they think are the dumbest provisions of the Constitution.) One of those is the Electoral College. You probably remember from high school government/civics classes about this bizarre process where your votes in November every four years for President don't really get counted directly, but instead determine how many "electoral votes" the candidate gets. That's why candidates consider the big states, California, Texas, etc. so important -- you need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency, and California delivers over 50 by itself in a winner-take-all vote. So whoever gets the most votes in California, even by one vote, gets ALL of California's electoral votes. Anyway, Jeff Greenfield obviously thinks the Electoral College is ridiculous and stupid, and he sat around and thought up of a scenario to prove it. Others would have written a law review article or an editorial in the Wall Street Journal; Greenfield came up with a novel. The plot, such as it is, is really a gimmick to highlight the constitutional crisis that the Electoral College could give rise to. What if a conservative presidential candidate picks a moderate but stupid vice-presidential candidate (think Dan Quayle with Rockefeller politics), and wins in the election, but before the Electoral College meets to vote, the president-elect dies? If the electoral voters find the vice-president-elect anathema, can they vote for someone else? Who should become president if the candidate who lost would thrash the vice-president-elect in a direct vote against each other? As a polemic against the Electoral College, this is a very successful work, much more readable than an academic article would be. As a novel, it's okay. It's not laugh out loud funny the way some of the published reviews suggest, and the characters are largely there to advance political arguments. But as a whole, this is a worthwhile read for those interested in politics.
Rating:
Summary: if you found the last presidential election interesting.....
Review: then this book is for you. it is amazing how mr. greenfield introduced the constitutional complexities of the electoral college a full five years before we would encounter similar trouble in real life. this isn't a carbon copy of the 2000 presidential election but it raises many issues that were confronted last fall. mr. greenfield does not drown the reader in lawyerspeak and legal manipulation. he introduces us to characters who live and breathe the same patriotic values every day in america. this book was well written and it won't take two months to figure out who will be the president.
Rating:
Summary: if you found the last presidential election interesting.....
Review: then this book is for you. it is amazing how mr. greenfield introduced the constitutional complexities of the electoral college a full five years before we would encounter similar trouble in real life. this isn't a carbon copy of the 2000 presidential election but it raises many issues that were confronted last fall. mr. greenfield does not drown the reader in lawyerspeak and legal manipulation. he introduces us to characters who live and breathe the same patriotic values every day in america. this book was well written and it won't take two months to figure out who will be the president.
Rating:
Summary: Unorthodox, but very good
Review: This was quite an interesting book. One who critiques the setup of the novel may be infuriated. This is not Cervantes or Dickens. Jeff Greenfield is probably the best political analyist on T.V., and his insight provides a great story. Twists and turns keep you inthralled. I went from start to finish with this book on Memorial Day. If you like politics and Constitutional loopholes, you'll love this book.
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