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The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 By Mark HalperinJohn F. Harris ( Random House )
Release Date: 2006-10-03
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Product Description
In The Way to Win, two of the country’s most accomplished political reporters explain what separates the victors from the victims in the unforgiving environment of modern presidential campaigns.
Mark Halperin, political director of ABC News, and John F. Harris, the national politics editor of The Washington Post, tell the story of how two families–the Bushes and the Clintons–have held the White House for nearly a generation and examine Hillary Clinton’s prospects for extending this record in 2008. Based on years of research, including private campaign memos and White House communications, The Way to Win reveals the surprising details of how the Bushes and Clintons have closely studied each the other’s successes and failures and used these lessons to shape their own strategies for winning elections and wielding power.
In the case of George W. Bush, the strategic genius is Karl C. Rove, arguably the most influential White House aide in history. For the first time, Halperin and Harris cut through the myths and controversies surrounding Rove to illuminate in brilliant, behind-the-scenes detail what he actually does–his Trade Secrets for winning elections.
In the case of the Clintons, the chief strategist is Bill Clinton himself. Drawing on their fifteen years reporting on and interviewing him, Halperin and Harris deconstruct and decipher the Clinton style, identifying the methods that all candidates can use in their pursuit of the White House.
The Way to Win takes a lively and irreverent approach, but Halperin and Harris also show the disturbing ways that American politics has become a Freak Show–their name for a political culture that provides incentives for candidates, activists, interest groups, and the news media to emphasize ideological extremism and personal attack. For the first time, Halperin and Harris describe how Freak Show campaigns orchestrated by the likes of Internet pioneer Matt Drudge forced Al Gore and John Kerry to lose control of their public images (with considerable help from the candidates’ own ineptitude) and lose the White House.
On the brink of what will be one of the most intense, most exciting presidential elections in American history, The Way to Win is the book that armchair political junkies have been waiting for. Filled with peerless analysis and eye-opening revelations from the trenches, it is a must read for everyone who follows American politics.
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 The Way to Win ( susanthurmondhebert )
The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 is my first attempt to understanding the Political System. I found it very informative in some back history I have missed in my American Education....great history lessons on Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, George Bush, Democrats and Republicans. This book is a great start.
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 Does not even mention Obama ( music1873 )
This book is okay, but these guys are not too brilliant in predicting the future, as they do not mention, a single time, some guy by the name of Barack Obama.
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Interesting Book and Easy to Read ( psupaul@peoplepc.com )
The majority of this book is very interesting and easy to read. I gave it three stars because the last third of the book begins repeating itself and spends too much time discussing Hillary Clinton's chances. I really enjoyed the look back at political history and the strategy used to win elections and defeat opponents. This book would be better if it was shorter. If you are interested in strategy or presidential elections, then I recommend this book. The chapters are short and it is well written.
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Great book - politics today, like it or not (hope you don't) ( pedrohomemgouveia )
For one who lives outside the US, here's a book that makes you dive head-first into how US politics are done today. Will these techniques spread to other countries? With a few adjustments, they most probably will.
Learning about how Kerry's announcement was shrinked to a short novel about his hairdo sure makes you laugh (c'mon, let's have have some sense of humor...) as it also makes you think about the future of Democracy... and about its essence. In the end, hasn't it always been about emotional appeals, abotu the small stuff that makes each voter tilt left or right?
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 Good for political junkies; some of their 2008 predictions already rendered irrelevant ( aaorrock )
As well-stated by others here, "Way to Win" is 'geeky' and 'for political junkies.' If you're looking for the type of delectable, fascinating 'inside the bus' reporting that is found, for example, in Newsweek's traditionally superb post-election special, well, here is not the place. While authors Mark Halperin and John F. Harris are definitely capable of that oeuvre, here they've produced a more analytical body of work analyzing what has made Clinton (both of them), Bush (43) and Karl Rove successful. Moreover, we're also shown what made Kerry and Gore unsuccessful.
What strikes me is the non-partisan stance of the book - the authors have lots of very positive statements about each of the four main protagonists (the Clintons being one successful pair, and Bush/Rove the other). It says a lot about the authors' ability to dispense dispassionate judgment that they're able to offer readers extensive, constructive looks at Hillary Clinton and Karl Rove without tipping their hands to feeling the least bit of antipathy towards one or the other. That's quite an achievement.
Despite all that, what strikes you at the very end of the book is how much of the book's conclusions have already been rendered irrelevant:
- John McCain is held up as the candidate who should fare best, given his mastery of the book's "trade secrets." [Right now, this looks like a major 'oops' - as I write this McCain has just made dramatic cuts to his staff and has only a small amount of funds in the bank.]
- Mark Warner and George Allen are touted as looking good for 2008. 'Oops' and 'Yikes!'
- Candidates and fundraising heavyweights Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama are nowhere to be seen.
- Rudy Guiliani merits brief attention, but only as an erstwhile senatorial candidate against Hillary in 2000.
Of course, much of that stuff is extraordinarily difficult to predict. It's more an indication of the "strangely fluid political times" (as Fortune aptly pegged it in a recent cover story) than of Halperin & Harris' prognosticating capabilities.
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