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FROM THE PUBLISHER: The Long Game is the candid, behind-the-scenes memoir of a man famous for his discretion. For more than three decades, McConnell has worked steadily to advance conservative values, including limited government, indi­vidual liberty, fiscal prudence, and a strong national defense. But he has always cared much more about moving the ball forward than about who gets the credit.

Even in recent years, when some of his colleagues seem obsessed with maintaining and cultivating their images in a twenty-four-hour news cycle, McConnell focuses on how today’s controversies will affect the country in a year, or two, or ten.

Now McConnell reveals what he really thinks about the rivalry between the Senate and the House; the players and the stakes involved when a group of political oppor­tunists tried to hijack the Tea Party movement; and key figures such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Harry Reid. He tells the inside story of the battle against Obamacare and other fights to protect the US Constitution against further encroachment by an out-of-control White House that’s stuck in a permanent campaign. He explains the real causes of the chronic gridlock that has so many vot­ers enraged, his ongoing efforts to restore the US Senate’s indispensable dual role as a brake on excess and a tool for national consensus, and what ordinary citizens have a right to expect from Washington.