The Control Room

Martin Plissner, former political director of CBS News, has played a central role in the network coverage of every presidential campaign since 1964. Now, drawing on his intimate knowledge of life inside the control room, he provides a lively and authoritative account of the ways television has come to dominate presidential politics in the final third of the twentieth century. Blending personal anecdotes with mini-histories, Plissner shows how all the elements of the contest for national power in America - the primaries, the conventions, and the final counting of the ballots - are shaped by…