Steering the Elephant: How Washington Works, edited by

Steering the Elephant: How Washington Works, edited by Robert Rector and Michael Sanera (Universe, 356 pp., $24.95)

When conservatives won a surprise landslide victory in 1980— a Republican majority in the Senate along with Ronald Reagan’s Presidency —a mixture of complacency and bafflement set in. The general feeling was more or less: “Well, we won. When do they give us the prize?”