“Military operations consumed so much attention during his presidency that few people appreciated that George W. Bush was also an activist on the home front. A former White House official analyzes Bush’s successes and setbacks, providing valuable insights into how future presidents can shape U.S. domestic policy while facing continuing partisan polarization.”

“An important contribution to scholarship on the Bush administration and on presidential policy-making strategies more generally.”
 — Gary Jacobson, University of California, San Diego

“In this magnificent book, John D. Graham shows that George W. Bush was a domestic policy activist from start to finish—pertinacious, astute, and surprisingly successful. With a thin electoral mandate, faced with great political polarization and a consuming foreign crisis, Bush 43 nonetheless advanced his domestic agenda to an impressive degree. Bush on the Home Front scores the wins, losses, and muddles—and lays out a penetrating analysis of legislative and administrative strategies that every future president will want to study. John Graham has admirably combined insider insight and scholarly detachment; right out of the box, he has set a very high standard for histories of a complex and contentious period in American politics.”
 — Christopher DeMuth, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

“For anyone interested in the legislative process and how presidential action can overcome or exacerbate partisanship, this book is a must-read.”
 — Lee H. Hamilton, Former U.S. Representative (D-IN), 1965-1999

“Chronicles a number of important policy issues addressed during the Bush presidency.”
 — Veronica V. Stidvent, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin

“Informative, thoroughly researched, clear both in structure and presentation, and provocative. . . . Will likely serve as a source document for other views of the Bush presidency. . . . A significant addition to the public policy literature on the Bush presidency.”
 — Donald R. Arbuckle, University of Texas at Dallas

“[A] worthwhile project written in an accessible style ... readers ... will come away from this work with a better knowledge of the realities of policymaking in twenty-first-century Washington.Spring, 2011”
 — Political Science Quarterly