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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.932092
EAN: 9780307463128
ISBN: 0307463125
Item Dimensions: 124960133640
Label: Crown
Manufacturer: Crown
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: June 02, 2009
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: June 02, 2009
Studio: Crown
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Before the White House and Air Force One, before the TV ads and the enormous rallies, there was the real Barack Obama: a man wrestling with the momentous decision to run for the presidency, feeling torn about leaving behind a young family, and figuring out how to win the biggest prize in politics.
This book is the previously untold and epic story of how a political newcomer with no money and an alien name grew into the world’s most powerful leader. But it is also a uniquely intimate portrait of the person behind the iconic posters and the Secret Service code name Renegade.
Drawing on a dozen unplugged interviews with the candidate and president, as well as twenty-one months covering his campaign as it traveled from coast to coast, Richard Wolffe answers the simple yet enduring question about Barack Obama: Who is he?
Based on Wolffe’s unprecedented access to Obama, Renegade reveals the making of a president, both on the campaign trail and before he ran for high office. It explains how the politician who emerged in an extraordinary election learned the personal and political skills to succeed during his youth and early career. With cool self-discipline, calculated risk taking, and simple storytelling, Obama developed the strategies he would need to survive the onslaught of the Clintons and John McCain, and build a multimillion-dollar machine to win a historic contest.
In Renegade, Richard Wolffe shares with us his front-row seat at Obama’s announcement to run for president on a frigid day in Springfield, and his victory speech on a warm night in Chicago. We fly on the candidate’s plane and ride in his bus on an odyssey across a country in crisis; stand next to him at a bar on the night he secures the nomination; and are backstage as he delivers his convention speech to a stadium crowd and a transfixed national audience. From a teacher’s office in Iowa to the Oval Office in Washington, we see and hear Barack Obama with an immediacy and honesty never witnessed before.
Renegade provides not only an account of Obama’s triumphs, but also examines his many personal and political trials. We see Obama wrestling with race and politics, as well as his former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. We see him struggling with life as a presidential candidate, a campaign that falters for most of its first year, and his reaction to a surprise defeat in the New Hampshire primary. And we see him relying on his personal experience, as well as meticulous polling, to pass the presidential test in foreign and economic affairs.
Renegade is an essential guide to understanding President Barack Obama and his trusted inner circle of aides and friends. It is also a riveting and enlightening first draft of history and political psychology.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Some people might think being called a renegade is a bad thing. Richard Wolffe describes President Obama this way and it turns out to be a good thing.
With Renegade, Wolffe describes the ups and downs of a presidential campaign from behind the scenes.
Like all the other political behind-the-scenes books, Wolffe builds a narrative using his interviews with the candidate, with the hard workers driving the campaign, and his own observations.
You will read how the team felt after winning Iowa and turning around to lose New Hampshire.
The writing is not above the bias. You can tell Wolffe is a fan and support of the President. And that is okay. Too many people complained that this book put President Obama in too good of a light.
I find nothing wrong with an author writing mostly positive things about the candidate he's following. This is his book.
A negative against this books is the lack of pictures. Most political books have a section in the middle with glossy photos from the experience. This one does not. (But how minor is that?)
A second negative is the structure of this book. Wolffe jumps from the announcement speech to winning of the general election and back again with ease while leaving the reader jet lagged.
I'm sure there are better behind-the-scenes campaign books out there. Take your time to find it.
Rating:  -
This book was supposedly induced by Obama's suggestion that someone should write a book along the lines of Theodore White's "Making of the President" series (1960-1972, 1980). After White stopped writing his excellent series (picking it up one more time for the 1980 election), Jules Witcover and Jack Germond wrote their excellent presidential election series (1976 (Witcover alone for this one), 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992).
"Renegade" is not up to the standard of those books. For one thing, it only follows Obama and his team, neglecting McCain and his team. A true "Making of the President" book should address the strategies, mistakes, and high points of both sides.
Even if this book was meant only to follow Obama, it is poorly organized. It jumps around in chronology so you lose track of where you are in time. Are we in Obama's formative political years? His time in the state senate? The primaries? The general election? The book jumps around without any reason for doing so.
Finally, this book is an Obama lovefest. That's fine for campaign literature, but not for political analysis.
I can't recommend this one except for political junkies. If you want a better account of the 2008 election, read Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz's "The Battle for America 2008" [ASIN:0670021113 The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election] -- much better organized, covering both sides, and providing better insight, without going overboard favoring one side or the other.
Rating: -
Renegade provides a detailed account of President Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency as perceived by a Newsweek reporter who had traveled with the campaign. In addition to the detailed campaign information there was also some biographical information provided here and there. The title "Renegade" is based on the non-traditional campaign run by Barack Obama and his unprecedented, rapid ascension to the presidency. Although there were some interesting points to this book overall I was left disappointed. I was hoping for more of a critique of the campaign - both good and bad. Although there were many examples by which this campaign bucked the trends of the more established campaigns - I felt overall it was just a bit too positive - a critical look at events would have been welcomed. This is a good book for someone interested in the details of a presidential campaign or biographical information on President Obama.
Rating:  -
Amazing that the author didn't see fit to mention any of the controversy of Obama's close circle of Marxists friends and mentors.
Don't bother looking here for anything other than the usual left-leaning cheerleaders.
Rating: -
This book reads like a pack of blah blah nonsense.Was my title too mean? I dont think so.We get the same talking heads in the corporate media over and over adnauseam.And they continue to lie about 911 and the so called War on terror which is really a War of Terror.Renegade??? I am sorry,as in Outlaw??? I dont think so.This Obama has chosen to continue the Cheney,Bush 911 LIE and the War of Terror.He is afraid to get out of Iraq.Is he really in charge? Whoever is,these people just dont learn.You just dont invade countries on the other side of the Earth and stay there.The brainwashed boys who go there will just continue to be picked off here and there.Its the way things work.Why cant someone in power finally actually learn something from Vietnam? The new code name for Obama should be Bottle.Because he is just a new Bottle.Same wine as Cheney and Clinton but just a new,more attractive looking and speaking bottle.
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