Jordan's disillusionment with Washington was profound. Unlike so many White House aides, he left and never came back, flirting instead with third-party politics. He was a co-chair of Ross Perot's campaign in 1992, and last year he wrote one of his groundbreaking memos sketching out the forces in society making 2008 the perfect year for a third-party presidential bid. But with the two major parties gravitating toward reform-minded candidates in John McCain and Barack Obama, Jordan told the Atlanta Press Club in March that he thought the oxygen for an independent candidacy was gone, relegating Unity '08, a group he helped create, to the sidelines. (To read a piece Jordan recently wrote for Newsweek.com analyzing the Obama campaign, click here.)

Jordan spent much of his time counseling fellow cancer patients, and his memoir, published in 2001, is titled "No Such Thing as a Bad Day." Together with his second wife, Dorothy, a pediatric nurse, he founded a camp for children with cancer. Like the president he served, Jordan's life after the White House defined him more than the four years he spent in Washington.

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