Available at stores that sell everything for a dollar or less, this book is a hard-copy bargain. Even for those who have read other campaign trail books, this book offers a combination of unvarnished sad truths (Presidential candidates speaking to empty rooms, waving to empty runways, all to create the “virtual reality” of having something to say and someone to listen to it) together with a sense of lost opportunities.As campaign reform looms on the horizon, I found this book especially appealing for its detailed look at “the people's candidate,” Morry Taylor, the “Grizz”–a person I never heard of during the actual campaign. The book really drives home how flawed our existing electoral system is today, as well as all the campaign contributions, “rented strangers,” and other anomalies that make good Presidents an accident rather than a choice.
I read the book shortly after reading Ted Halstead and Michael Lind, “The Radical Center”, on citizen-centered politics of choice, and there could be no better book for appreciating just how radical Halstead and Michael are, than this book.