eMusic Bookshelf
Candidates '08
In a presidential campaign season where personal narratives dominate the debate, it is worth noting that both candidates have been crafting those narratives for over a decade. There's Obama, the community organizer and law professor whose grassroots appeal and idealism has turned him into a rising star with the dream of reforming Washington and returning agency to the American people. There's John McCain, the heroic POW survivor, national security advocate and Republican maverick who has worked on bipartisan solutions for ethics reform in Congress for 20-plus years.
Behind the sound bites, of course, are real people whose personalities and actions are more complicated than their campaigns would have us believe. It is revealing, then, to read their books and discover that both candidates admit to making mistakes, that at times, both candidates have diverged from their party lines, that both candidates claim to look for consensus in Washington.
Read Obama's Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope and it's clear that behind the rousing orator is a critical thinker who has observed the world outside of the Senate floor. In Dreams From My Father, Obama relates the story of his unusual childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii, an adolescent/early-adult period of uncertainty and rebellion and his ultimate quest for identity in reconnecting with his Kenyan family. The Audacity of Hope, published in 2007, is a much more election-conscious book, outlining Obama's experience as an underdog in politics, his views on international relations, the economy, education, race, faith and healthcare. Readers will find many of the talking points of his recent debates and speeches here in nascent form. Obama's latest tome, a compilation of his platform and speeches put together by the Obama camp for America campaign, spells them out in greater detail.
McCain's books, written with his longtime aid Mark Salter, are short on policy prescriptions or political ideology but emphasize his values and experiences. All three build on McCain's appealing persona as a war hero unafraid to challenge the establishment. Both Why Courage Matters and Character is Destiny focus on the human qualities that make for great leadership and social transformation under difficult circumstances such as war and political repression. Yet in Worth the Fighting For, McCain reveals a more complicated vision of himself, a man whose ambitions occasionally threatened to overtake his convictions but who seems to possess the self-awareness to check himself and continually strive for his ideals of honesty and integrity.
As the election race reaches a feverishly angry pitch, with ever-narrowing messages and consultant-approved barbs, these subtleties of personality — the other, lesser-known stories behind McCain and Obama's respective visions —are lost in the fray. Reading the candidates' books offers a more intimate perspective, a deeper understanding of who these men are and what their version of leadership might look like.
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Worth the Fighting for
In a follow-up to his bestselling memoir Faith of My Fathers, McCain recounts how, on the day he buried his father, a vice admiral of the Navy, he turned in his own resignation to the Navy. A Vietnam POW, he had worked for years as a military liaison to Congress but was ready for a new civilian life. Soon after, he met his now-wife Cindy and moved to Arizona where he leveraged his political contacts and financial resources to enter the political arena in his forties. At times surprisingly self-critical, Worth the Fighting For explores McCain's political life from his early work on Native American issues to the Keating Five scandal to improving diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s. Throughout these years of his career, his "maverick" status was not always celebrated: "I'm an independent-minded, well-intentioned public servant to some. And to others, I'm a self-styled, self-righteous maverick pain in the ass." After relating his failures in the 2000 election in an afterward, he muses, "I doubt I'll have reason or opportunity to try again." Eight years later, the two-time presidential hopeful has a new chapter to add.
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Character Is Destiny
Taken together, these "inspiring stories every young person should know and every adult should remember" form a kind of moral treasury. McCain emphasizes that character is something we choose and as such, our destinies are of our own making. Chapters devoted to individual traits, such as "authenticity," "confidence" and "mercy," contain stories of the famous figures and lesser-known folks throughout history who illustrate them. There's Abraham Lincoln, whose ability to overcome hardship, failure and opposition demonstrates "resilience," and Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish priest who sacrificed his own life for others' at the Auschwitz concentration camp, exemplifies "compassion." Other notable figures include Charles Darwin, Sojourner Truth and Tecumseh. McCain holds his own POW experience in Hanoi up as an example of "faith": When a guard snuck in one Christmas to loosen McCain's restraints and drew a cross with his sneaker in the sand, McCain felt a renewed belief in humankind and God that helped him survive the brutal imprisonment. A politically neutral book, Character is Destiny is one of the stronger works in McCain's hero-centric canon.
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Why Courage Matters
In this 2004 meditation on courage, John McCain attempts to define the term and its importance in a world of moral relativity, noting that "courage" should be reserved for acts more significant than changing a hairdo. The book was conceived when an editor requested McCain, a war hero and longtime senator, pen some advice for Americans confronting their fears after 9/11. McCain writes that his initial response was impatience, that people should "suck it up" and resume flying and using elevators because the chances they might die in a terrorist attack are still very low. Nevertheless, he proceeds to stretch what might have been an effective 20-page essay into a book-length work peppered, school report-style, with an astounding number of rhetorical questions. More convincing are the anecdotes of McCain's heroes, Americans such as civil rights leader John Lewis and Vietnam hero Roy Benavidez, who exemplify courage in action and give the book needed heft.
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Dreams from My Father
Barack Obama's first memoir, released well before he was a glimmer in the Democratic Party's eye, is a fascinating, painfully honest examination of family, race and identity. Obama's father was born in a Kenyan village and journeyed to Hawaii for university, where he met Obama's mother, a Midwestern-bred idealist. The union was short-lived, though, and his father went back to Kenya. His mother remarried and moved to Indonesia, where Obama spent his formative years. Obama later returned to the States to live with his white grandparents in Hawaii. A troubled adolescence marked by confusion about his racial identity and experimentation with drugs bled into his college years. He ultimately found inspiration as a political science major in New York and a career as a community organizer in Chicago. Finally, after a journey to Kenya, he also found peace with his father's legacy. Most striking about Dreams From My Father is its author's psychological insight, global consciousness and authentic populism. It's difficult to imagine that this book could have been written by any other presidential candidate in recent history.
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The Audacity of Hope
This biography reads more like a campaign manifesto than a personal memoir, focusing on Obama’s political beliefs and views on America rather than simply telling his life story. However, the Illinois Senator does take the time to paint a detailed picture of his experience in Washington. Whether it’s describing his first days in the Senate or recounting his first experiences with President Bush, Obama conveys the smallest details — like what a particular person was wearing, or what a room smelled like. Many chapters are spent describing his views on the Constitution or comparing Republicans and Democrats, but the anecdotal scenes are when the story truly comes to life. His keen flair for storytelling comes through in the narration and his calm yet lively voice engages from the very beginning. Though his views might scare away die-hard conservatives, Obama’s mostly moderate stance and ability to convey his ideas create an audiobook that aims to entice a broader audience.
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Change We Can Believe In
The Obama for America campaign has compiled this handy guide to Obama's platform for curious voters. A foreword by Obama is followed by chapters delineating his plans to generate a green economy, end the war in Iraq, improve education, offer universal healthcare, improve energy independence and reform Washington ethics, among others. It's a hefty bill but it demonstrates Obama's ingenuity in thinking up new solutions — and perhaps answers some of the critics who deride his campaign as all lofty speech with no specific policy. Of course, the second part of the book is devoted to those lofty campaign trail speeches, including his stunning address on American race relations at Philadelphia's Constitution Center, a semi-controversial Father's Day speech imploring African-American men to stay involved in their children's lives and an epic call to the German people for renewed international cooperation. More than a primer, Change We Can Believe In is a document of a fascinating election at an especially difficult time in U.S. history.
© 2009 Muze Inc. For personal non-commercial use only. All rights reserved.