Cupcakes and Courage is a memoir about women, politics and Ohio. In 2006 Jennifer Brunner was elected Ohio's first and only woman Secretary of State where no woman has yet been elected Governor or U.S. Senator. Brunner speaks to her experiences in public and private life-from death threats and 24-hour guards during the 2008 presidential election to receiving the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for her work. In a tough U.S. Senate race in 2010 she fought the conventional political establishment with cupcake parties and a silver school bus bought on eBay named by her supporters, "The Courage Express." Brunner's compelling stories offer an inside look at the human side of state and national politics in the must-win battleground state of Ohio. Like the cherry on top, her stories make a quiet and poignant case for better politics in U.S. democracy in the twenty-first century.