in my telling it was a story of a cdidate named maury taylor who spent $7 million getting $7 votes in new hampshire and iowa. no one in his right mind would have put maury taylor at the center of that book but i thought i could say things about the american political process through him that i couldn't say through that conventional candidate. and he was wonderful to be with. but it required both the literary freedom-- which a magazine gave me, "the new republic" gave me-- and the indifference to the opinion of my peers to put him front and center. so it is a kind of insistence that the reader be interested in what i'm interested in. that it probably i an advantage even though it's not obvious that... obviously the they can one should be interested in. the billy beane story is that way, too. nobody was interested in what the oakland as. >> rose: how did you find billy sfwhooen >> he'sn my backyard. i live in berkeley. but it started with the queion how could they be winning these games if this market makes sense? a team who no money should not be able to succeed. >> rose: and the stori