About this item
An entertaining and important account of presidential elections in which the winner of the popular vote lost or came all too close to losing, focusing on the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the disputed elections of 1876 and 2000, the deadlocks of 1800 and 1824 (when the elections were thrown to the House of Representatives) and the close call during the tumultuous year of 1968. Author and historian Mark Weston explains how electoral votes emerged as a compromise between the free states and slave states at the Constitutional Convention, how they were inspired by an unusual method of counting votes in ancient Rome, and how this system played out in six presidential elections that shake our faith in American democracy. The Runner-Up Presidency combines an in-depth political and numerical analysis of America's electoral system with rich narratives of our six strangest elections.
About the Author
Mark Weston's new book, "The Runner-Up Presidency," is both the most entertaining and most thoughtful book about electoral votes written since the Bush v. Gore election of 2000. Former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley calls it, "a must read for those truly interested in our democracy." Weston's previous book, "Prophets and Princes - Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present," was published by John Wiley & Sons in the fall of 2008. Britain's New Statesman magazine called it "always intelligent," and Saudi Aramco World magazine said Weston "writes sensitively about the post-9/11 era." Weston's interest in the Muslim world began when he lived in Lahore while writing his first book, The Land and People of Pakistan (HarperCollins 1992.) The Los Angeles Times called Weston's second work, Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japan's Greatest Men and Women (Kodansha 1999) "a superb new book." Foreign Affairs called it "vivid, an excellent introduction to Japanese history." Walter Mondale wrote the foreword, and the book went into paperback in 2002 and again in 2008. Weston grew up in Armonk, New York and graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in history. He spent a year at the London School of Economics, then earned a law degree from the University of Texas. He has been a lawyer for ABC Television and a journalist for ABC News, and has written articles for The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. His one-character play, "Meet George Orwell," has been performed at Trinity College, Oxford and the John Kennedy Presidential Library Theatre in Boston, among other venues. In 1991 Weston won enough money on TV's Jeopardy! to start a company that makes geographical jigsaw puzzles for children. He sold his firm to a larger puzzle company three years later, then lived with a Japanese family in Tokyo while researching his second book. He has also written a children's book, Honda: The Boy Who Dreamed of Cars, that Lee & Low Books published in the autumn of 2008. Weston gives lively talks on presidential elections, the Middle East, Islam, and Japan. Venues have included the White House Fellows, the Middle East Institute, the Toyota Motor Corporation,. Columbia and Rice universities, and a cruise ship, the Clipper Odyssey. 1740 Alderman St. # 5, Sarasota, FL 34236-7540
