In many ways 1980 was a landmark political year: it marked the last time an American president received a serious re-election challenge from within his own party, the last contested convention, and the last all-out floor fight over the nominee. A senior political correspondent for Yahoo News, Ward brings two decades of experience to the story of the fight between Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination. His account details the assumptions behind Kennedy’s challenge, considers the personalities involved, the crippled state of the Party, and the wider geo-political context of the nation. He also traces the effects of the Democrats’ civil war, showing how it meant the end of an outdated system and the advent of a political landscape shaped by figures including Bill Clinton, Tom Donilon, Anita Dunn, Joe Trippi, and Bob Shrum.