Dana Milbank, Deadline Jumper

The 2000 election, unprecedented in so many ways, has produced the first Teddy White-like tome to be sent out for review before we know who won! Honors go to the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, author of Smashmouth: Two Years in the Gutter With Al Gore and George W. Bush. In a cover note accompanying the manuscript, Basic Books publisher John Donatich hails Smashmouth as “the suspenseful backstory to the closest political match in recent memory” before explaining, “The last chapter is being written as you read this.”