The debut of a brand-new civics series for high school seniors and college freshmen that clearly, concisely, and cleverly explains how the United States elects its president.

While Eleanor Clift cared for her husband, journalist Tom Brazaitis, through the last two weeks of his life, the nation watched a very different death play out as Terri Schiavo entered her final days. In the commonalities and contradictions between these events, Clift probes the underlying questions: How should we handle the decisions surrounding a loved one's death? What if that loved one did not--or cannot--speak to us about these issues?

The first Madam President will be sworn in sooner than most people think. But the gender gap in politics is still shockingly broad, say two of America's most readable political commentators in this "timely look at the nation's sputtering efforts to envision a woman in America's top job."("The Boston Globe").
Charting the transformation of women's power in American politics from the first female presidential candidate (Victoria Woodhull in 1872) to the shattered presidential hopes of Shirley Chisholm and Elizabeth Dole, Madam President presents tales of passion, determination, set-backs, and triumph from nearly all national women politicians and most leading state politicians "in the pipeline." With insight garnered from years on the Washington political scene and candid interviews with leading politicians like Christine Todd Whitman and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Clift and Brazaitis explain why the barriers to women are still formidable: There are only 3 female governors (one of the best routes to the White House) and at the current rate it will take 250 years before there are as many women Senators and Representatives as men.
A forward-looking, savvy analysis of women in politics, "Madam President" gives the first inside look at how America's female politicians got there, stayed there, and what it will take for them to make it to the presidency.

From Simon & Schuster, War Without Bloodshed is Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis' exploration into the art of politics. In engaging vignettes, Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis showcase the everyday activities, behind-the-scenes confrontations, and unlikely alliances of the people who influence how laws are written and who decide whether or not they will, in fact, become the laws of the land.