Elections Books - Page 3

What It Takes: The Way to the White House

Richard Ben Cramer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An epic book...absolutely timeless 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a book people might shy away from since it deals with the 1988 campaign, and those candidates are basically ancient history (except for Biden). However, what the book really describes it literally 'what it takes' for any man or woman to believe they can be President.

We look at the people running today, and we see them as TV characters and sometimes buffoons, but forget that in their youth they were probably the smartest, most popular, most driven people we would have known. Just to get to a place where one can entertain the idea of running for President takes a life of very, very few wasted opportunities.

So, while this book doesn't talk about Obama or Clinton or Huckabee, etc., you can read it and at least get sort of a sense of what the candidates are like behind the masks they put on.

The best thing that can be said about "What It Takes" is that you will read it and you will appreciate that Presidential candidates actually are qualified, and while they might make terrible decisions, they really are the best we have.

"What It Takes" is an antidote for cynicism.

Editorial Review:

An American Iliad in the guise of contemporary political reportage, What It Takes penetrates the mystery at the heart of all presidential campaigns: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that makes a true candidate? As he recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 presidential race -- and scours the psyches of contenders from George Bush and Robert Dole to Michael Dukakis and Gary Hart -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer comes up with the answers, in a book that is vast, exhaustively researched, exhilarating, and sometimes appalling in its revelations.

Politics of Congressional Elections (Longman Classics in Political Science), The (7th Edition) (MySearchLab Series 15% off)

Gary C. Jacobson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Bible on Congressional Elections 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Anyone involved in running for a congressional seat, working on a congressional election or just interested in national politics will find this book enormously interesting. It's short. It's down to earth. It's up-to-date. And, it's one of the best on the subject. Professor Jacobson's book features pertinent analysis of national survey data plugged into long-term electoral trends. It covers all you need to know about how to make a run for Congress, calculating your odds and the chances of knocking off an incumbent. It is a unique blend of academic effort and practicality that is continually useful. It is the very best on what to expect in congressional elections for the U.S. House and Senate.

Editorial Review:

Brought completely up-to-date with the latest data from the National Election Study and the Federal Election Commission, and including coverage and analysis of the dramatic 2006 midterm elections, this seminal work continues to offer a systematic account of what goes on in congressional elections and demonstrates how electoral politics reflect and shape other components of the political system, with profound consequences for representative government.

 

 

Better Than Sex:: Confessions of a Political Junkie (Gonzo Papers, Vol 4)

Hunter S. Thompson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Political Junkies, Rejoice... 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I find that, no matter what book I read by the good Dr. Thompson, I can never write an appropriate review or make any sort of intelligent, logical comment on the subject. To date, I've read Hell's Angels, The Rum Diary, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas twice, along with a few of the articles in Hey Rube. Picking up Better Than Sex, I hoped to finish the book and be able to, finally, write some sort of response to the book, putting to rest this impotence of critique that seems to hang like a strange, twisted shadow over his writing.

Like most people faced with the inability to perform a task, mine is psychological, rooted in a sort of awe factor, that phosphorous phantom known as envy that usually takes the form of imitation or fear and inability. I mean, essentially, you read Thompson and when you put the book down, you say "I want to write like that." Then, you open up Word or, if you're a bit old-fashioned, you pull out a pen and paper, and sit there, staring at the blankness, the perfect emptiness that you know you're only going to muck up because no human being can write like that.

No living human being, anyway.

What Thompson did - not only in writing but in life - was to infuse everything he touched with a sort of rough humanity. Whatever the subject, from the loss of idealism in the sixties hippy culture to why Bill Clinton was a weird one, but the only thing we had going in 1992, he could explain and expound upon it with the word of a poet and the common sense of your best childhood friend. The man knew how to craft a sentence and a story, something that was both informational and interesting, and by the time you reach the end of the story, you realize you're walking away not only entertained but educated. He had the power to do that.

Better Than Sex is a bit different from his earlier work, mostly in that it relies heavily on deviant, manic faxes sent to everyone from Clinton's campaign manager to Jan Wenner at Rolling Stone while Thompson was covering the campaign trail in 1992. While you're shuttled from one strange jaunt to the next, entertained at Hunter's various bizarre suggestions, you're also learning, picking up things you never realized were going on in that oh-so-important election year. He's pointing out mistakes that Bush Sr. made in 92, mistakes that were remembered not only by Hunter, but as becomes apparent as the book comes to a close, by the Bush II campaign. It's like a hard, fast look at the 2004 election trail, seeing the same plays from the same teams, except this time the away team learned from their mistakes twelve years ago, and they're not about to lose this championship again.

Reading it, however, isn't just an entertaining story or a guide to how to win a Presidential election. It's also a window into the mind of a man who was fed up with the Republicans twelve years ago, ready to take drastic action if Bush Sr. was re-elected. Reading it now, in light of Thompson's suicide in February, one can almost begin to comprehend the incomprehensible, as in his weirdest, most outrageous moments, Hunter revealed more of himself than he did when straight-laced and serious. In his coverage of the 92 campaign is the story of a man who could not live under the fascist iron fist of the more moderate Bush Republicans of the past, who reviled everything they stood for, and who threatened to flee the country should they take control for another four years. He shows himself as a man who is reinvigorated by the victory of sensibility over the zealous, Big Brother of a Republican party that was half the strength and only a forth as fanatical as the one that recently enthroned itself for another four years. He is revived by the masses throwing out the trash and choosing to change the ways of the country by making a choice for improvement and change. Twelve years later his rallying cry in Rolling Stone went unanswered, America chose fascism over freedom, and freak power as a force to be reckoned with is dead in the United States-how could he survive in that world?

This is not to say that a single presidential election could determine the life or death of one man; when it comes to politics, mortality rates are usually in the thousands. What Better Than Sex does say, however, is that like it or not, Thompson was a political junkie, that while his reputation was built on drugs, his perfect drug is a good political match, and that as a catalyst, it held major sway with a man whom drugs alone could not touch.

Editorial Review:

An outrageous, apocalyptic odyssey through the American electoral process provides insights and observations on the 1992 presidential campaign by the author of Generation of Swine. 75,000 first printing.

How to Win a Local Election, Third Edition

Lawrence Grey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

His Honor does a masterful job of detailing 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

the nuts-and-bolts of a local campaign. And Judge Grey is blunt about the tribulations a first-time candidate is about to experience.

If you are running for local office, you can't afford not to read this book.

Solid Read 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Reads as a how-to book for aspiring politicians. As a veteran of two political campaigns and just gearing up for my third it touched on everything I have experienced before and added a few new ideas.

Good Election Primer 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a good book for a first time candidate to know what they should be thinking about.

Editorial Review:

A must do guide for anyone starting out in the campaign process, detailing what they need to accomplish along the way in order to win. Includes information on planning and organizing the campaign, how to run as an independent candidate, campaign techniques, and marketing tips. This book also offers advice on financial reporting to campaign theme and strategy and is the most comprehensive do-it-yourself guide to running and winning one of the 500,000 local offices.

Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions

Ken A. Shepsle, Mark S. Bonchek

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Simply the Best Book in its field 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This book analyzes politics from the ground level up. It begins by analyzing individual decision-making, moves onto the collective decision-making processes of groups, and then to the institutions of government. Each of the higher levels is built upon the foundation of the preceding level. This allows the authors to explain such (apparent) paradoxes as how a group of people--each making a rational decision--can produce irrational collective decisions, why a group (as opposed to an individual) can not actually have a preference, and so why the outcome of an election may not represent anything as amorphous as "the will of the people" but be determined by the procedure used in the election process (See also, William Riker's The Art of Political Manipulation, particularly the amusing yet shocking chapter, "The Flying Club.").

Be forewarned, this book is about rational choice theory, and how it explains political outcomes. Whereas a Marxist or social constructionst approach would analyze how group or social structure affects individual choices, Shepsle and Boncheck are analyzing how individual choices create social structure. It's not that easy of a read, as it includes formulas and graphs that most people do not intuitively grasp. But one of the great successes of this book is that most of it can be understood even if you ignore those things. The brief case studies, which show how the ideas apply to actual political issues and events, are particularly well-written, and make the book understandable for the average person.

I would add, that despite the "bad" reputation of rational choice theorists, Shepsle's a heck of a nice guy. Not at all the kind of arrogant snob you might picture as the typical Harvard prof!

California Government and Politics Today, 2006-2007 Election Update (11th Edition)

Mona Field

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent introduction 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Basic, easy to read introduction to the state governemnt and politics. Provides a solid foundation to understanding the current state of politics and how we arrived at this point. Information is providing in interesting and relevant fashion, and is up-to-date with current politics (updated post-recall campaign).

Editorial Review:

This lively text offers a unique approach to California government that blends political data with economic, cultural, and demographic trends, and analyzes the link between the economy and the political process. California Government and Politics Today is written by a college professor who is also an elected official in California, offering a unique insider's view that will engage and inform students. This updated edition continues the book's tradition of encouraging political activism and developing the reader's own unique political views.

In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elisabeth Griffith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Mesmerizing 4 out of 5 stars.
12 of 15 people found this review helpful.

I found this book totally mesmerizing. I thought the author did a good job in covering Stanton's later years. She was thorough and honest. I learned a lot and would recommend it to anyone interested in the origins of women's history.

Semi-Informational but Long winded 3 out of 5 stars.
10 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I would reccomend this book but only to someone extremely interested in the subject. If you are looking to be amused-this is not a good choice. This is definately an educational resource to be used to understand this woman's life, not to be interpreted as a cozy novel to curl up by the fire with... but as I said, if you are a real woman's history buff- I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Editorial Review:

The first comprehensive, fully documented biography of the most important woman suffragist and feminist reformer in nineteenth-century America, In Her Own Right restores Elizabeth Cady Stanton to her true place in history. Griffith emphasizes the significance of role models and female friendships in Stanton's progress toward personal and political independence. In Her Own Right is, in the author's words, an "unabashedly 'great woman' biography."

Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 (Gender and American Culture)

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Glenda Gilmore recovers the rich nuances of southern political history by placing black women at its center. She explores the pivotal and interconnected roles played by gender and race in North Carolina politics from the period immediately preceding the disfranchisement of black men in 1900 to the time black and white women gained the vote in 1920. Gender and Jim Crow argues that the ideology of white supremacy embodied in the Jim Crow laws of the turn of the century profoundly reordered society and that within this environment, black women crafted an enduring tradition of political activism.

According to Gilmore, a generation of educated African American women emerged in the 1890s to become, in effect, diplomats to the white community after the disfranchisement of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. Using the lives of African American women to tell the larger story, Gilmore chronicles black women's political strategies, their feminism, and their efforts to forge political ties with white women. Her analysis highlights the active role played by women of both races in the political process and in the emergence of southern progressivism. In addition, Gilmore illuminates the manipulation of concepts of gender by white supremacists and shows how this rhetoric changed once women, black and white, gained the vote.

How to Run for Local Office : A Complete, Step-By-Step Guide that Will Take You Through the Entire Process of Running and Winning a Local Election

Robert J. Thomas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The best how-to-run-for-office book I've ever read 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Robert J. Thomas is not a great writer in the conventional sense, but perhaps miraculously, this humble and unassuming 128 page mini-tome is the best book on running for office that I've ever read. Mr. Thomas gives you the information that you need to know without a lot of filler, and he gears the book to the most likely potential readership - the first-time campaigner without a lot of money, connections, or experience. No fluff, no filler, no frills. When I ran for office in 2004, I purchased five how-to-run-a-campaign books (see my other reviews), and this was the best of the bunch. Thank you, Robert J. Thomas! I only got 1.33% of the vote (Green Party candidate in five-way race), but the tips and techniques offered herein probably saved me from an even more humiliating defeat.

I approve! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I checked out a lot of reviews of other books before I bought this one, and I'm not disappointed. What's particularly great is that it really zeroes in on the local election with very specific ideas and tasks.

As I've worked on local elections for others, I can say that Thomas clearly knows what he's talking about, and he's taught me many things I didn't know. When it comes time to throw my hat in the ring myself, this book will be my bible.

1920: The Year of the Six Presidents

David Pietrusza

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Story of an Important Election 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

David Pietrusza's "1920" is devoted to a dramatic presidential campaign in American history.

The campaign took place against the backdrop of post-WWI social/labor unrest and inflation, and the country longed for a "return to normalcy". However, America was changing rapidly as the Roaring Twenties began. Automobile ownership was exploding, Prohibition had taken effect, the nation was rapidly urbanizing, jazz was becoming popular, women got the vote, and radio was about to burst onto the national scene (one of the first-ever radio programs was the broadcast of the 1920 presidential election returns).

Pietrusza writes chapter-long portraits of each of the six men who planned to compete for the White House in 1920--Wilson, both Roosevelts, Coolidge, Hoover, and the ultimately triumphant Harding. There is extensive coverage of both the Republican and Democratic nominating contests, including the GOP convention in Chicago and the Democratic convention in San Francisco.

Following that is a full description of the fall campaign, in which race played a major role. The GOP reclaimed the White House by a huge landslide, after eight years out of power. A brief look at the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover presidencies is appended--the story ends with FDR's inauguration in 1933.

There is an opening section called "The Players in Our Drama" and a closing epilogue--these two sections have paragraph-length blurbs describing what happened to many of the major and minor historical figures of the period, including Henry Ford, W.E.B. Du Bois, H.L. Mencken, and Eugene Debs, among dozens of others.

This is a fun read for anyone interested in American politics, and for anyone who wants to learn more about a very fascinating time period in American history.

Editorial Review:

The presidential election of 1920 was among history's most dramatic. Six once-and-future presidents--Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt--jockeyed for the White House. With voters choosing between Wilson's League of Nations and Harding's front-porch isolationism, the 1920 election shaped modern America.

Women won the vote. Republicans outspent Democrats by 4 to 1, as voters witnessed the first extensive newsreel coverage, modern campaign advertising, and results broadcast on radio. America had become an urban nation: Automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit transformed the economy. 1920 paints a vivid portrait of America, beset by the Red Scare, jailed dissidents, Prohibition, smoke-filled rooms, bomb-throwing terrorists, and the Klan, gingerly crossing modernity's threshold.