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jamison's review
3.0
A super quick read that gives an interesting overview of the Republican race up until 2012. I'd certainly recommend it to politicos, you can easily get through it in an evening.
ericwelch's review
3.0
This short Kindle Single really needs to be read in conjunction with their other Single, The End of the Line and perhaps an earlier one in their Playbook 2012 series. I avoid TV pundits and daily reportage like the plague, preferring to wait until the dust settles and writers gain a little distance to figure out exactly what happened.
I remember avidly reading all the Teddy White "Making of the President" and I've recently started Richard Ben Cramer's "What it Takes", an excellent analysis of the 1988 election. The authors of these two short works don't approach his high standard but they are quite interesting, nevertheless for their revelations and analysis.
Romney, we recently learned from one of his sons, never really wanted to be president, anyway, that he was pushed into the race by his family, although that sounds suspiciously like sour grapes. Ironically it was his business experience that may have hurt him the most, always micromanaging rather than delegating to staffers who were probably more competent at assorted tasks.
It didn't help that he had to go through the trials of the Republican primary, otherwise known as the circular firing squad. The primary system, which biases toward the extremes of each party forced him into adopting ridiculous positions which he came to rue later even as his staff, off message as usual, portrayed him as moving back to the center after he won the nomination, especially with the Etch-a-Sketch comment which just confirmed to both left and right that Romney had no core values. The authors treat us to lots of fun inside information about the other dysfunctional candidates like Perry and Gingrich and Bachmann, each of whom had their moment in the sun before going down ingloriously in flames. Romney's ultimate selection was perhaps inevitable, but what a bizarre trip.
One insider said, "Romney goes into each state, he’s not building a movement. Instead, he goes in, and it’s a machine. They know how to execute really well and take down another candidate and win. But what they don’t know how to do is lift up their own candidate and sell a vision, sell a movement, and get people excited about him. I think it’s troubling that the turnout is lower than in 2008. This should be the year where Republican primary voters are incredibly excited about getting rid of President Obama. Instead, it’s not been that way at all.”
As Nate Silver showed with his data analysis, Romney probably never had a chance given the demographics and Electoral College numbers.
These books are fun to read for their "real-time" reporting, but probably won't hold up particularly well as historical records.
I remember avidly reading all the Teddy White "Making of the President" and I've recently started Richard Ben Cramer's "What it Takes", an excellent analysis of the 1988 election. The authors of these two short works don't approach his high standard but they are quite interesting, nevertheless for their revelations and analysis.
Romney, we recently learned from one of his sons, never really wanted to be president, anyway, that he was pushed into the race by his family, although that sounds suspiciously like sour grapes. Ironically it was his business experience that may have hurt him the most, always micromanaging rather than delegating to staffers who were probably more competent at assorted tasks.
It didn't help that he had to go through the trials of the Republican primary, otherwise known as the circular firing squad. The primary system, which biases toward the extremes of each party forced him into adopting ridiculous positions which he came to rue later even as his staff, off message as usual, portrayed him as moving back to the center after he won the nomination, especially with the Etch-a-Sketch comment which just confirmed to both left and right that Romney had no core values. The authors treat us to lots of fun inside information about the other dysfunctional candidates like Perry and Gingrich and Bachmann, each of whom had their moment in the sun before going down ingloriously in flames. Romney's ultimate selection was perhaps inevitable, but what a bizarre trip.
One insider said, "Romney goes into each state, he’s not building a movement. Instead, he goes in, and it’s a machine. They know how to execute really well and take down another candidate and win. But what they don’t know how to do is lift up their own candidate and sell a vision, sell a movement, and get people excited about him. I think it’s troubling that the turnout is lower than in 2008. This should be the year where Republican primary voters are incredibly excited about getting rid of President Obama. Instead, it’s not been that way at all.”
As Nate Silver showed with his data analysis, Romney probably never had a chance given the demographics and Electoral College numbers.
These books are fun to read for their "real-time" reporting, but probably won't hold up particularly well as historical records.
kurtpankau's review
4.0
I love what Politico is doing with their coverage. Rather than a retrospective at the end of the election, they're releasing episodic mini-ebooks at regular intervals, meaning that I'm reading fresh political coverage in a book. A book! I would come across a retelling of something and realize that the event being described had only happened a month ago. Of course the real problem here is that INSIDE THE CIRCUS came out a week before Santorum dropped from the race, which would have given the narrative an effective close. But them's the breaks.
Picking up where THE RIGHT FIGHTS BACK left off, ItC tries to frame itself as a chronicle of Romney's quest to secure the nomination. It never really achieves that, so this book feels like a string of loosely-related reports rather than a cohesive political narrative (a Lord of the Rings metaphor evoked in the final pages felt particularly ham-fisted). That said, the reporting is wonderfully in-depth and info-taining. It's a campaign as bemoaned by campaign managers and GOP insiders. There is a little insight into the way Citizens United and Super PACs have changed the race--rather poignant if you've listened to This American Life's coverage of campaign finance--and a lot of insight into the candidates as human beings. We get to see Santorum as the quick-to-anger policy wonk. We see Romney as the almost-too-robotic family man who is trying not to repeat his father's campaign mistakes and is deeply, madly in love with his wife. And with Bachman and Cain out of the way, Gingrich's doughy buffoonery gets a chance to really shine.
For politics-as-process and current-events coverage without speculation or ever mentioning the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the issues being discussed, this is a great primer.
Picking up where THE RIGHT FIGHTS BACK left off, ItC tries to frame itself as a chronicle of Romney's quest to secure the nomination. It never really achieves that, so this book feels like a string of loosely-related reports rather than a cohesive political narrative (a Lord of the Rings metaphor evoked in the final pages felt particularly ham-fisted). That said, the reporting is wonderfully in-depth and info-taining. It's a campaign as bemoaned by campaign managers and GOP insiders. There is a little insight into the way Citizens United and Super PACs have changed the race--rather poignant if you've listened to This American Life's coverage of campaign finance--and a lot of insight into the candidates as human beings. We get to see Santorum as the quick-to-anger policy wonk. We see Romney as the almost-too-robotic family man who is trying not to repeat his father's campaign mistakes and is deeply, madly in love with his wife. And with Bachman and Cain out of the way, Gingrich's doughy buffoonery gets a chance to really shine.
For politics-as-process and current-events coverage without speculation or ever mentioning the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the issues being discussed, this is a great primer.
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