|
Voter education
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama (Dreams from My Father), expands on themes the senator from Illinois expressed in his electrifying keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Obama discusses the need to avoid the divisive aspect of modern politics, drawing examples from the 2004 presidential campaign and his eight years in the Illinois legislature.
Conservatives Without Conscience, by John W. Dean, is already a bestseller, as was Dean's previous book, Worse Than Watergate. In his latest, the former White House counsel to Nixon takes the current conservative leadership to task for abusing power and ignoring the political beliefs of the majority of Americans, thus endangering democracy itself. The Courage of Our Convictions: A Manifesto for Democrats is Gary Hart's challenge to his party to redefine itself and its goals. The former longtime senator from Colorado evokes FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ, while calling for Democrats to lead the way in stewardship of the environment, engaging the citizenship and managing the country's new role in a changed world.
The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina is New York Times Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich's step-by-step tracking of the Bush administration's actions since Sept. 11, 2001. The book includes a time line of events and public statements paired with behind-the-scenes activity in Washington. Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America by Randall Balmer, whose Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory book and documentary chronicled the evangelical world in which Balmer grew up and still worships. Here, Balmer, a religion professor, reports on the increasingly political Religious Right and its polarization of the Christian community.
Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South by political science professor Thomas F. Schaller. "Republicans cannot be a national majority party without the South, but neither can they do it with the South alone," Schaller says, urging the Democratic Party to look to other regions, and to adopt successful Republican tactics such as using coded language and wedge issues to claim them. Winning Right: Campaign Politics and Conservative Policies by former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie is a memoir/political how-to book. Gillespie discusses the 2004 presidential campaign, the G.W. Bush administrations and various strategies and policies to show how he successfully led the Republican Party to victory.
By Barack Obama Crown, $25 ISBN 0307237699
By Andrew Sullivan HarperCollins, $25.95 ISBN 0060188774
By John W. Dean Viking, $25.95 ISBN 0670037745
By Gary Hart Holt/Times Books, $22 ISBN 0805081011
By John Danforth Viking, $24.95 ISBN 0670037877
By Frank Rich Penguin Press, $25.95 ISBN 159420098X
By Randall Balmer Basic, $24.95 ISBN 0465005195
By Lou Dobbs Viking, $24.95 ISBN 0670037923
By Thomas F. Schaller Simon & Schuster, $26 ISBN 0743290151
By Ed Gillespie Pocket/ Threshold Editions, $26 ISBN 1416524835
|
With midterm congressional elections and a number of hotly contested gubernatorial contests and other races coming up, it's a good time to familiarize yourself not only with the key issues, but also with the strategies behind the campaigns and platforms of the two major political parties. If there's a trend in the following books, it's criticism of one's own party and calls to get back on focus and away from either losing strategies or potentially destructive tracks.
The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back is the latest book from former New Republic editor and popular political blogger Andrew Sullivan. Here he addresses some of the contradictions inherent in the American conservative platform. Efforts to amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages and the increased level of the national debt are among the ways Sullivan says the Republican right have abandoned the party's ideals.
Faith and Politics: How the "Moral Values" Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together by John Danforth argues that the Christian Right has led the Republican Party away from the principles for which the party has long stood. A former three-term senator from Missouri and an ordained Episcopal priest, Danforth illustrates his argument with such topical issues as abortion, stem cell research and displays of religion.
War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back by CNN anchor Lou Dobbs. Dobbs asserts that the current state of our nation's health care and public education systems, along with powerful lobbies and other factors, are destroying the mobility at the core of the American Dream.
Support your