The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election (Thorndike Press Large Print Nonfiction Series),   ISBN:9781410420367

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THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA 2008: THE STORY OF AN EXTRAORDINARY ELECTION provides a fresh, new account of a landmark election told in real-time as events unfold, and details strategy memos for the Obama, McCain and Clinton campaigns in a survey coming from the authors' exclusive access to the major dealings of each faction in the election. A powerful addition to any college, high school or general lending library strong in political or election analysis.

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This book is interesting, no matter what your point of view. This book is written primarily for the political junkie or staffer. More than any book this book successfully recreates the feel of the famous Theodore White's "Making of the President" books in the 60s and 70s. It really describes the political battle like a sports battle.

A reader will be very taken in by the book. The book has very little new to it if you kept up with the election in the papers. It takes the newspaper accounts with interviews, demographic information and some inside observations all together to create a spell bounding account of the election. All of that together makes you realize why things occurred. Events make much more sense after reading this book.

The down side of the book is that it is very slanted towards Obama. He gets most of the print. The stories tend to be told from his staff's side. The book very quickly glosses over some of the Republican primary fights, the other candidates and some of the scandals.

However if you are a political junkie you will love the book just on account of the style.

Customer Rating: 

When I was growing up I had a chance to read about elections of the past. Theodore White wrote a series of books called "The Making of The President" every time a new President was elected. Then the books stopped. This collarbrative book by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson is an attempt to recreate a Theodore White kind of "inside story". What this book lacks in volume it makes up for it in how easy it is to read and from the inside stories. It reads more like a Bob Wordward book in that way. If you want to see how hard it is to become President or to see that it's characters are completely "mortal" this is a book you should read.

Customer Rating: 

This was a fascinating read which shed light on the inner workings and political manipulations of both the Obama and McCain camps during the 2008 presidential elections. If you closely follow politics I am not certain you will find a lot of surprises, then again there are a few that might make your bell ring. I highly recommend this book. It is an easy and fun read, cover to cover, in just a few hours, especially if you are using a KINDLE.

Customer Rating: 

Are you asking yourself "How did we elect this administration?"

If so, this is the book that paints the picture in readable prose.
Johnson and Balz do not drill down into data much. Their account consists of vignettes and interviews after the fact. Primary election outcomes and caucus results are related in one sentence, usually coming after narrative about what the campaigns expected to score versus election-night realities. Over and over, they describe assumptions, missed opportunities by candidates, behind-the-scenes infighting in the McCain and Clinton campaign organizations (Clinton's especially), and the role of craft, technology, economic gloominess, and secrets in shaping the outcome.

Most instructive of the narrative threads that the authors weave is how the vaunted Clinton political machine destroyed itself because Hillary Clinton had apparently failed to put any one operative in charge. The result was chaos, enmity, wasted money and, finally, firings.

The take-away for the reader is that it's not the best man or woman who wins an election, it's the best campaign organization.