IN THE WINTER OF 2003, before the Democratic presidential primaries, Bush political adviser Karl Rove took a poll. He asked nine senior members of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign who they thought would emerge over the coming months as the Democrats' presidential nominee. The respondents were split. And they all turned out to be wrong. Missouri Democrat Richard Gephardt won with five votes, while former Vermont governor Howard Dean came in a close second with four. Among those who thought Gephardt would claim the nomination? President Bush himself.

This story is taken from a new book put out by one of those advisers, former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie. His Winning Right: Campaign Politics and Conservative Policies (Threshold Editions, $26.00) is filled with such anecdotes, and is well worth reading if you're a political junkie.

Gillespie's book belongs to a specific genre--that of establishment Washington. There are dozens of books about politics by political figures who have never been elected to office, and Gillespie is just such a figure--but his book has the distinction of being intelligent, respectful of his opponents, and even occasionally funny.

Now in his third decade in Washington, Gillespie started off as an intern in the congressional office of Democratic congressman Andy Ireland of Florida. But Ireland was a conservative Democrat who was at odds with his party, and in 1984 he announced he would run for reelection as a Republican. Gillespie switched his party affiliation too. It was a good career move. In February 1985, a freshman Republican

The Republican nominee in 1996, Senate majority leader Bob Dole of Kansas, lost. But that didn't alter Gillespie's upward trajectory. He left partisan politics for lobbying and public relations, working first at Barbour's firm, then starting his own. That firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates, is one of the largest, and certainly one of the most famous, of its kind. (The Quinn in "Quinn Gillespie" is Jack Quinn, former counsel to President Clinton.) Gillespie's career doesn't simply coincide with the Republican ascendancy from Reaganite insurgency to (semi)functioning governing majority. It symbolizes it.

The casual observer of national politics will probably remember Gillespie from the role he played in the 2004 presidential campaign. As chairman of the Republican National Committee, the former RNC intern helped to coordinate communications strategy and was an omnipresent fixture on cable news. Throughout that tumultuous, close-run race, Gillespie had the good fortune to have as a sparring partner Democratic National Committee chair and fellow Catholic University alumn Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton fundraiser. Gillespie calls McAulliffe "the Macker." Off camera, the two are friendly. McAuliffe is "a much nicer guy in person than he comes across on television," Gillespie writes.

One comes to expect such kind words from this author, who has little unkind to say about anyone. This is not a tell-all book. "My first Cardinal Rule of Politics is loyalty," Gillespie writes, which might have figured in his success. His most critical words are directed at the "mainstream media," which he finds biased against Republicans, and--more intriguing--Republican pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz polled for Ross Perot in the 1992 campaign. Also, he conducted some focus groups testing the Republican's 1994 Contract with America. "He used that single task to essentially claim credit for its creation," Gillespie writes disapprovingly, "and made a fortune selling politicians across the globe on the idea." Gillespie continues: "It's unfortunate. A lot of people did a lot more work and had a lot more to do with its conception and development than Frank did . . . Frank is one of those consultants who believe that it's all about him, not the ideas or the candidates."