THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Imagine this: The American People (whoever they are) require the assistance and good will of a couple of advertising honchos to tell them how to take back the government. Patterson and Kim, co-authors of The Day America Told the Truth, (not reviewed) employ polling, focus groups, town meetings, and other "advanced sampling and research-design techniques" (What? Doesn't anybody just listen anymore?) to unfetter the repressed inner child of the American body politic. The book has chapters on AIDS, crime, education, health care, and other issues, but all that's just prologue. The big bonus is a surprise: Patterson and Kim have conducted some sort of election by mail, and on the book's pub date, they'll tell us who the "voters" elected (that is, should elect) president — Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Gen. Colin Powell, Texas govenor Ann Richards, or any of 15 other "candidates.