All the candidates' books

The 2008 presidential contenders have written way too many books. A readers guide to 18 of them, the Good, the Bad and the Cosmic.

By Salon staff

Read more: Rudy Giuliani, Books, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, John McCain, Politics, Memoirs, President, Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo, Fred Thompson, John Edwards, Sam Brownback, Books Features, Barack Obama, 2008 election, Mitt Romney, ron paul, Mike Gravel

Oct. 18, 2007 | The 2008 crop of presidential candidates is certainly a literate bunch. They've all written books, except Rep. Duncan Hunter,R-Calif., unless he's the Duncan Hunter who wrote, "A Martian Poet in Siberia," a self-published sci-fi novel about global warming. Published between 1972 and two weeks from now, the candidates' books vary as much as their authors, ranging from gripping personal revelation to high-minded speechifying to run-of-the-mill wonkery.

And we have read many of them, though we didn't get to Alan Keyes' oeuvre because of his late entry into the race. In the 16 reviews that follow, the books are rated on a rising scale of one to five, with icons appropriate to the candidates -- the first President Roosevelt for the Republicans, the second for the Democrats, and cosmonauts for the more, um, idealistic entrants in the race for the White House.

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"Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games" by Mitt Romney

We have had war hero presidents, cowboy presidents, presidents from academe and aristocratic presidents. Mitt Romney wants to be the first organization man president. So in his memoir, "Turnaround," he thanks his "senior legal counsels" in the intro, and then follows with 384 triumphant pages of crisis management, marketing wizardry and audits.

In 1998, he was asked to leave his nine-figure job as a Boston buyout specialist to take over the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, which were reeling from a bribery scandal. As a proud Mormon, he felt the call of service from his great-great-grandfather's homeland. By his own account, it was a transformative experience, yielding chapter titles like "Strategic Audit," "Uncertain Revenues" and "The Budget." He dictates the book as events happen, on his weekly commute from Park City to Salt Lake, detailing the highlights of his meetings with bankers and explaining his need to have his wife by his side at night. "I simply could not turn around the Olympics without her daily counsel," he writes, after asking her to fly out from Massachusetts to join him. He also offers occasional insights into the passions that drive him. "McDonald's was one of our best sponsors," he confesses. "We loved the company as much as I loved their burgers. And that's saying something." Romney is not kidding. He really does love those burgers.

-- Michael Scherer

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"The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" and "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by Barack Obama

I read both of Barack Obama's books thinking: Would I be reading this if the author weren't running for president? The answer is no for "Audacity," yes for "Dreams." As the title suggests, most of "Dreams" is of course about his father, a Kenyan goat-herder who scrounged a scholarship to the University of Hawaii, met and married Obama's mother, and then took his education back to his family in Africa.

The story of Obama's trip to Kenya to learn about his late father is fascinating and the heart of the book. But what was most interesting to me was his unglamorous stint as a community organizer in the poor, mostly black neighborhoods of Chicago. He draws a sympathetic but not always flattering picture of the array of black activists he got to know in that web. Through it all Obama is smart and never mean, as critical of himself as anyone else.

All the issues that come alive in "Dreams" are in "Audacity" too, but they're often fairly lifeless on the page. I was also irked by a tic in his writing, in which he holds up two opposing groups or ideas and then shows how he reconciles them: gun owners and gun haters; Daily Kos readers and Democratic insiders. "Audacity" also suffers because it feels padded with constitutional law lecture notes and speech drafts. I wanted stories from real-life politics to illuminate the way out of our current political divide, the way stories from "Dreams" did for our racial divide. The contrast between the richness of the two books could give ammunition to people who worry about Obama's lack of national political experience. But I'd still rather have the author of "Dreams" as president than many of his challengers in either party.

-- Joan Walsh

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"A Prayer for America" by Dennis Kucinich

Have you texted Peace 73223? Do you advocate the abolition of all nuclear weapons? Are you a vegan? Yes? Then prepare to have your mind blown by the wacky stylings of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, in "A Prayer for America." With a preface by Studs Terkel, who writes that Kucinich "is like Poe's purloined letter -- right there on the table as we helplessly play Inspector Clouseau goofily searching elsewhere," the slim volume, mostly a collection of speeches, proves that Kucinich often represents the best in us. It is also a 141-page primer on why his candidacy is not even remotely plausible.

Kucinich quotes Carl Sandburg and James Russell Lowell! He composes a "Haiku of Hegemony"! And he sets down on paper the following passage, which might explain why he only lasted two years in his last executive position, mayor of Cleveland: "Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends, to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: one with the universe; whole and holy; from one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental; we -- the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic spiraling."

For. Real.

-- Rebecca Traister

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"In Mortal Danger" by Tom Tancredo

You probably know two things about Tom Tancredo. One, that the Colorado congressman will not be the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. Two, that he is really, really, really, really angry about illegal immigration.

There are only two things you need to know about the book in which he vents said anger, which is subtitled "The Battle for America's Border and Security." One, it's dedicated to the late Madeleine Cosman, the pseudo-scientist whose phony stats about hordes of Mexican lepers swarming across the border were dutifully repeated on-air by CNN's resident Know-Nothing, Lou Dobbs. (You can see video of Cosman ranting here.) Two, though Tancredo is sparing with his endnotes, he gives one to the late columnist Samuel Francis, who in 1994 made public comments so racist that even the Washington Times felt compelled to fire him. To repeat, Francis exceeded the RDA of wingnuttery at the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's newspaper.

You can stop right there.

-- Alex Koppelman

Next page: Hillary's photo album, Ron Paul's New World Order