¡Obámanos!
By Hendrik Hertzberg
(Penguin Press HC, The, Hardcover, 9781594202360, 352pp.)
Publication Date: October 29, 2009
Categories: Political Process - Elections
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The most critical election in living memory, viewed in real time through the eyes of one of our most trusted political commentators.
Celebrated political analyst for The New Yorker Hendrik Hertzberg watches the long presidential campaign of 2007 and 2008 as it unfolds to reveal the transformation of the Democratic Party, the meteoric rise of Barack Obama, and other seismic shifts in our national political consciousness. Hertbzerg wrote about the events that culminated in the victory of Barack Obama in two venues, one Olympian and one immediate: his "Comments" for "The Talk of the Town" and the informal blog he began keeping on the magazine's Web site fifteen months before the election. OBÃ MANOS! is adapted from both and framed by a new introductory essay.
OBÃ MANOS! shares the context needed to truly understand the events of the general election-the first in more than a half century in which no incumbent president or vice president was on the ballot-by first examining Bush's second term and the primary campaign. Hertzberg follows the central political players and rising stars while also looking at the issues that emerged as critical during the debates, such as health care, the Iraq war, and our economic crisis. Through his documentation and analysis of the campaign's defining moments, we come to understand the current political landscape in a whole new way.
Hertzberg's voice combines sharp observation, historical perspective, analytic power, and often funny polemic. He brings all these qualities to his chronicle of one of the most intense, exciting, and surprising campaigns in the nation's history, sharing how most Americans-including The New Yorker editors-came to identify a junior senator from Illinois as "a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe." OBÃ MANOS! heralds a new chapter in American politics.
Hendrik Hertzberg has been a staff writer and editor at The New Yorker since 1992 and was a staff writer there in the early 1970s as well. He is the author of Politics. He has also been a naval officer, a Newsweek reporter, President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter, and (twice) editor of The New Republic.
Hendrik Hertzberg, author of Obamanos!, assesses the year since President Obama's election. And former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee and NPR political editor Ken Rudin talk about gains Republicans made in the 2009 elections. More at NPR.org
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The New York Times Book Review - Jonathan Freedland
In book form, without the cooling effect of The New Yorker's trademark typeface or the ironic detachment provided by an adjacent line drawing or two, Hertzberg's fury is naked to the eye. And yet he is no finger-jabber leftist, hectoring his reader in the manner of so many radicals in print. The writing is too good for that. Hertzberg has a novelist's control of metaphor and a comedian's gift for the one-liner...But it is not only Hertzberg's wit that prevents him from being a left wingnut. He may stake out radical positions...but he is, more often, a spokesman for those unsung soldiers in the progressive army: the brokers of the messy compromise.
"A collection of astute articles penned as longtime New Yorker writer Hertzberg (Politics: Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004, 2004, etc.) watched Barack Obama's historic presidential campaign. It was the longest, most expensive and, arguably, the most important presidential election in American history, one that "was as severe a test of stamina and character as any our fundamentally sadistic policy system has ever imposed on a set of candidates." Veteran political analyst Hertzberg, who also served as Jimmy Carter's speechwriter, reveled in every detail. His collection of short pieces, dated from September 2004 (the Democratic National Convention) to November 2008 (the election), provide a real- time synthesis of everything from the early debates to the veracity of the blogosphere-the articles included here are culled from the "Comments" section of the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" and from Hertzberg's political blog. When parsing Republican nominees and their platforms, the author is consistently fair, though unabashedly liberal. His admiration for Obama is conveyed in eloquent, rigorous prose, and his criticism of attack advertisements and the legacy of the Bush administration are bolstered by deep knowledge of political history and verifiable facts. Hertzberg effectively demonstrates how the election was momentous not just because a Democrat was elected in a time of Republican distress, but because it forever altered the political landscape: A black man won the Democratic nomination for the first time in history; a female vice-presidential candidate challenged the paradigm of political experience; issues such as health care, the environment and the economy trumped the fear- mongering campaigns of the last several cycles; journalism as an industry and an institution was challenged by the egalitarian proliferation of live-bloggers. Without sacrificing the sublime wordplay that devoted New Yorker fans hold dear, the author presents an incisive, profound and intellectually challenging commentary on a landmark series of events in American political history. The perfect book with which to recall and appreciate the significance of Obama's journey to the White House."
--Kirkus, starred review
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