This book is about a puzzling case of outstanding political success followed by unexpected political failure. Political scientists know that incumbent members of the U.S. Congress usually win reelection. This book is about one who did not. After twenty-three years of continuous service–seventeen in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate–Sen. Mark Andrews of North Dakota was defeated for reelection. The central questions of this book are: What happened and why?
Th book’s guiding concept is the idea of a political career; its underlying theme is that of political change. Like several other recent books by Fenno, this one is a narrative account. This case study of one U.S. senator rests heavily on personal observations made by the author during visits to North Dakota in 1980, 1982, 1985, and 1986 and during one year, 1981-1982, in Washington.
For its basic outline it relies on the idea of two separable processes of campaigning and governing that are played out in two separate contexts–home and Washington–and on the sequential effects of one process on the other in shaping an individual senator’s behavior. Andrews’s electoral defeat is viewed as the culminating event in a long political career–a career that was substantially influenced by changing contexts in Washington and North Dakota.
