A veteran progressive policy maker, Fredrickson served as special assistant for legislative affairs to President Clinton, chief of staff to Senator Maria Cantwell, and deputy chief of staff to Senator Tom Daschle before becoming president of the American Constitution Society. Her hard-hitting book draws on her extensive experience in public life to argue that conservatives have gained power at all levels of government not on the strength of their policies, but purely by their skill at using the system to get elected. She sees their success as a lesson for progressives, and urges left-wing politicians to focus less on the nuances of specific issues and more on strategies for winning office, while at the same time using their platforms to expand the franchise, end voter suppression, and institute other measures that will make the electoral process less easy to manipulate.