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What It Takes
Richard Cramer
Took a while to get into, but once I did it was hard
to stop. Loved Cramer's personal tone throughout the
novel, thought it did a good job bringing the reader
closer to these larger than life figures and
demythologizing them and their lives. Broad takeaways
from the book: news reporters should be held under
more scrutiny (especially when it comes to measuring
intangibles like 'Karacter'), politics & governing
competence rarely go hand in hand, and the memory of
the public is intensely fleeting. At first it was a
bit disorienting flipping between the life stories and
political fortunes of 5 distinct people, but it
eventually felt natural which is quite a feat. The
omission of Jesse Jackson felt pretty glaring, but I
can understand Cramer's reasoning. In terms of each
candidate: Dukakis was fun to read about. I think he's
the most poetic candidate described and I'm kind of a
big fan of his. I still don't really know what
happened in the general election, but I would like to
learn more. Hart was also a pretty sad story, the
description of the media attacks on him was fairly
aggravating. The fact that his 'karacter' became more
important than his actual ideas felt sad. Biden was
the reason I heard about this book, and it was
interesting to see him enter a race as the young
front-runner to contrast with how I think of him
today. The portrait painted of him was more humanizing
than I've known; and once again, his treatment by the
media left a bad taste in the mouth (and by Maureen
Dowd!). Gephardt felt like the Democratic version of
Bush, but perhaps more sympathetic. Dole was an
interesting figure, and one of the more opaque ones to
understand. He passed away while I was reading this
book, and the book's description of him felt like a
fitting eulogy to him. His life story was the most
touching, and the amount he acheived is truly
remarkable. The way his campaign fell apart was
particularly heartbreaking. Bush was the least
sympathetic character throughout the book. The fact
that someone who lived in such a bubble throughout his
entire life could exercise such power over so many
people is frightening. His ending reminded me of the
ending to Veep, but I'm not sure his Faustian bargain
came fully due for him.