This hit musical was a rousing political satire, with a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. The show has a surprisingly modern story, concerning the first presidential campaign to be won using a media campaign. The hero is candidate John P. Wintergreen, who runs on a platform of Love. His campaign manager has whipped up national excitement by promoting a beauty contest in Atlantic City, promising that the bachelor Wintergreen will marry the winning beauty and make her First Lady. ("Who the lucky girl will be / Who gets to leave the bourgeoisie?" is one couplet from a chorus on this subject.) However, before Wintergreen can tie the knot with the winner, Diana Devereaux, he falls in love with a secretary, Mary Turner, who is young, pretty, and blessed with a fine soprano voice and a top-notch recipe for cornmeal muffins. How can a mere beauty pageant winner compete with all that? Wintergreen marries Turner and is sworn in as President. Devereaux sues him for breach of promise, nearly causing Wintergreen's impeachment. But since the President's love for his wife is obviously true and faithful, the public forgives him.

The show ran for 441 performances and became the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Since Gershwin saw the show more as an operetta than as a regular musical, he composed a more "classical" overture than usual. Most Broadway overtures are simply medleys of the show's top songs. But this time Gershwin wrote a well-developed orchestral fantasia on three songs: "Wintergreen for President," "Who Cares?," and the title song. There was a sequel, Let 'em Eat Cake, but its plot (involving an attempted Fascist-style takeover of the Wintergreen administration) was far too grim, and the show flopped.

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