The Scandal Plan: Or: How to Win the Presidency by Cheating on Your Wife - Softcover

Folman, Bill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061447668 ISBN 13: 9780061447662

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2009

Synopsis

With only a few months until Election Day, presidential- hopeful Senator Ben Phillips is getting battered in the polls and his staff is getting desperate. Smart, capable, fair, and honest, Phillips is the perfect man for the job—but he bores the voting public because he's such a straight arrow. Fortunately, political guru Thomas Campman has had an epiphany: all the candidate needs to revitalize his image—and to clear his path to the White House—is a tiny fake sex scandal, because there's nothing more humanizing than a harmless bit of dirt from the past.

But scandals—even the premeditated kind—rarely go as planned. And this made-up indiscretion is about to snowball into the biggest three-ring circus since Watergate.

About this title

About the Author:

Bill Folman has enjoyed a brief career as a theater actor, directed a few short films, earned a few degrees, and spent countless hours shouting at the evening news. He lives with his wife in Los Angeles, where he writes books and screenplays.

From Publishers Weekly:

An earnest presidential hopeful's campaign staff invents a sex scandal in Folman's slick debut. After Machiavellian campaign manager Thomas Campman hears a voice telling him that sin will make his struggling candidate, Sen. Ben Phillips, human, Campman convinces Ben and his fellow advisers that having the candidate admit to a made-up, decades-old affair will endear him to the masses. Though the plan energizes the campaign and boosts Ben's image, it also puts a strain on Ben's marriage, and after other women begin claiming in the press to have had affairs with Ben, the ruse threatens to end in ruin. Though the novel takes a while to find its footing, Folman does a great job of constructing a funny, fast-paced story with plenty of texture. Side plots involving a young ambitious reporter and Campman's driver are neatly folded into the main goings-on, and it's especially enjoyable to chart Ben's transformation from flustered novice to confident charmer, even as his new persona begins to take him over the edge. The lackluster early chapters may thwart readers looking for a biting political satire, but those willing to stay the course will be greatly rewarded. (June)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061447668
• ISBN 13: 9780061447662
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448