Dog Days

It's August in Washington, D.C., in an election year. The Democratic convention has just concluded; the Republican convention is just a few weeks away. The weather is hot and hazy, people leave work a little earlier, and they drink a little more. A town that often seems ridiculously reminiscent of high school now starts to feel more like summer camp. And the life of twenty-eight-year-old campaign staffer Melanie Thorton is about to veer wildly off course. Melanie has the job of her dreams and the (married) man of her dreams. She's helping to run the communications outfit of Democrat John Hillman's presidential campaign and she's having a romance with Washington's most powerful political journalist, Rick Stossel.