Primary Colors is a 1998 film starring John Travolta based on the popular book (a success fueled in part by speculation over the identity of the author). It also starred Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Adrian Lester, Kathy Bates, and Maura Tierney. Bates was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance, and the film itself was nominated for an Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay.

This chart shows each character with their real-life counterpart and the actor who played them in the movie:

Jack Stanton is running for president. The election is seen through the eyes of young Henry Burton. Along the way Stanton must deal with a sex scandal. Written by Anonymous

This work is the barely fictionalized account of candidate Bill Clinton in 1992 via the character Southern Governor Jack Stanton. Joe Klein joined Newsweek as a political reporter and columnist during the 1992 US Presidential race, and followed then candidate Bill Clinton on the road. As such, Klein dutifully conveys the youthful exuberance for a new candiate, along with the sense of awe at his determination, drive, and intelligence. All along, he also displays the shocking lack of personal morals of a "natural" candidate for the office. Further, he shows the inner deal-making that everyone connected with the campaign makes to achieve the vision they started with, no matter how ugly the cheating, talented candidate gets on his road to the election. Klein tells the story from the 1st person perspective of a sophomorish campaign manager, Henry Burton, that just happens to be a grandson of a black civil rights leader. They join the Southern Governor at a talk given on adult education, in which Gov. Stanton cries as he tells the students how they were braver than his uncle--a World War II veteran that earned the Medal of Honor, but went home and never took a job because he was too embarassed to tell anyone he was illiterate. We next find out this story is not true! Despite this, Burton decides to join the campaign, and works many of the standard issues--such as fighting off scurrilous attacks by opposing candidates, and captured and doctored cell phone conversations, etc. Burton walks into the campaign headquarters (a hotel suite) to find the Governor coming out of a bedroom not completely dressed, and a disheveled librarian they had just met at a school they had attended. Of course, Susan Stanton, the Governor's wife, is nowhere to be found. The team flies to another destination to meet up with Mrs. Stanton, as she has been campaigning for her husband among their party elite in that state. Burton is eventually introduced to Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), whose job is to defend the President by combating the attacks from all comers. She does so with ruthless abandon, but also with a strict moral code: There apparently is something noble about stopping the attacks of others, but it is almost reprehensible about digging up the dirt on others -- essentially attacking them first. We come to know that Gov. Stanton is a philanderer of extraordinary magnitude, but an inspired genious at politics. Unfortunately, this extends to sleeping with a 17-year-old babysitter, the librarian they just recently met, a long-term affair with another woman, and the list goes on. Written by Anonymous

Liberty and justice for all ... of the people, by the people and for the people ... all men are created equal. These values are carved into the bedrock of our nation; we believe in them, and we teach them to our children. Men and women have fought and died to protect those words, and yet Americans are still divided by race. Prejudice and discrimination are still problems. "So on the one hand we live in this world where we take equality for granted, but then we see these, these huge inequalities in educational status, in economic status, in political status - and how do we make sense of that?" asks Pamela Perry, Ph.D. She is a sociologist and race researcher studying that very question at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "This creates, for young people especially, a conundrum - something that they're trying to figure out and make sense of," she says. Just over 50 years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled segregation unconstitutional. The dream was that kids of different races who studied and played sports and ate lunch together would no longer mistrust or be afraid of one another. Many people take for granted that diversity is a good thing, but Mitchell Chang, Ph.D. spends his time researching exactly how that may be true. According to a theory called Cognitive Dissonance, he says, children who experience diversity actually grow up to become better leaders, better citizens and achieve higher self-esteem. "When we test this," he says, "we find that students who are in diverse learning settings come to understand issues in more complex ways ...they become better thinkers." Seventeen-year-old Nicki is African-American. She baby sits for a Caucasian family because she wants their children to grow up not to be afraid of people who look different. Sarah and Jeff Streiff are Caucasian, and they both grew up in segregated neighborhoods. But now they've chosen to raise their children in a neighborhood that is nearly all African-American. At Artesia High school there have been small race riots in three of the last four years. But this year, two girls, Marisol and Harmony - one Mexican and one Caucasian - are crossing a line that few there have ever crossed before. What have these kids learned from diversity? What can every family gain? See the hardship and promise of diversity, watch, "Primary Colors." Written by CWK Network