This book will be hailed as the best work to date on Texas politics, and it will be as valid in 2020 as in 1990. -- Joe B. Frantz, Corpus Christi State University, former Director of the Texas State Historical Association

This major work on Texas politics explores the complicated relations between the politically disorganized Texas blue-collar class and the "rich and the fabulously rich," whose interests have been protected by "brilliant practitioners of horse trading, guile, the jovial but serious threat, the offer that can't be refused."