While in mourning for his mother's recent death, journalist Takashi Jo was personally selected by Kenneth Yamaoka to cover his presidential campaign. Soon the young reporter is swallowed up in the passion, the maneuvering and the backstabbing of Washington politics.
From a barge on the Potomac to the Democratic primary in New Hampshire, Jo joins Yamaoka and his supporters on the campaign trail: his adopted daughter Rachel, his troubled son Alex, and his campaign manager (and Vietnam war comrade) Arthur McCoy. Bill Goldblum, Yamaoka's Democratic rival, is crippled by a concocted scandal. Yamaoka courts the services of George Tuck, a Republican political strategist. As the primary approaches, Yamaoka must do the impossible and challenge the nomination of the obvious Democratic candidate: Vice President Albert Noah.