|
| Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid | 
 enlarge | Author: Joe Klein
Publisher: Random House Large Print Publishing
Category: Book
Buy Used: $8.50
Used (2) from $8.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 3145993
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
ISBN: 0739326147
EAN: 9780739326145
ASIN: 0739326147
Publication Date: April 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn’t holding. There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington. The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters’ trust. Blame abounds and personal responsibility is nowhere to be found. There is a cynicism in Washington that appalls those in every state, red or blue. The question is: Why? The more urgent question is: What can be done about it?
Few people are more qualified to deal with both questions than Joe Klein.
There are many loud and opinionated voices on the political scene, but no one sees or writes with the clarity that this respected observer brings to the table. He has spent a lifetime enmeshed in politics, studying its nuances, its quirks, and its decline. He is as angry and fed up as the rest of us, so he has decided to do something about it—in these pages, he vents, reconstructs, deconstructs, and reveals how and why our leaders are less interested in leading than they are in the “permanent campaign” that political life has become.
The book opens with a stirring anecdote from the night of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Klein re-creates the scene of Robert Kennedy’s appearance in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis, where he gave a gut-wrenching, poetic speech that showed respect for the audience, imparted dignity to all who listened, and quelled a potential riot. Appearing against the wishes of his security team, it was one of the last truly courageous and spontaneous acts by an American politician—and it is no accident that Klein connects courage to spontaneity. From there, Klein begins his analysis—campaign by campaign—of how things went wrong. From the McGovern campaign polling techniques to Roger Ailes’s combative strategy for Nixon; from Reagan’s reinvention of the Republican Party to Lee Atwater’s equally brilliant reinvention of behind-the-scenes strategizing; from Jimmy Carter to George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton to George W.—as well as inside looks at the losing sides—we see how the Democrats become diffuse and frightened, how the system becomes unbalanced, and how politics becomes less and less about ideology and more and more about how to gain and keep power. By the end of one of the most dismal political runs in history—Kerry’s 2004 campaign for president—we understand how such traits as courage, spontaneity, and leadership have disappeared from our political landscape.
In a fascinating final chapter, the author refuses to give easy answers since the push for easy answers has long been part of the problem. But he does give thoughtful solutions that just may get us out of this mess—especially if any of the 2008 candidates happen to be paying attention.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 Pages of Notes on This Book--Other Reviews Largely Worthless May 31, 2006
62 out of 75 found this review helpful
Edited to remove opening at suggeastion of earnest Amazonian, and to add several books and recommend my list of transpartisan books based in part on Reuniting America's list.
I have five pages of notes on this book, which is my 708th book of non-fiction pertaining to national security and competitiveness, and in the context of the other 707 books (okay, three on MGBs and three on menopause), this is, without question, a five star book.
There are several key points that I take very seriously, and I believe that this book could usefully be read with moderate Republican Clyde Prestowitz's ROGUE NATION, and Senator Edward Kennedy's AMERICA: Back on Track. Readers interested in my recommendations might also look at my lists, especially my lists of Democracy and on Collective Intelligence.
Key point #1: AUTHENTICITY is lacking in politics, and could be what wins the 2008 election for either John McCain, if he can avoid the "born again Bushophile" slander, or Mark Warner, if he can bring himself to field the moderate Republican from Maine Susan Collins as a Vice President, and a coalition cabinet committed to electoral reform. McCain is especially attractive to me because he could--as author Joe Klein notes--fix the military by ending military-industrial-congressional corruption and putting a stop to corporate welfare. Warner, on the other hand, could field a credible coaltion government that ends both the corruption of special interests and the corruption of the Republican and Democratic party leadership who force their party members to vote the party line instead of their conscience (see Tom Coburn's superb BREACH OF TRUST).
Key point #2: Consultants have drained democracy dry and actually driven voters away. This is almost a no-holds barred indictment of the consultants and polling firms that grew from the 1970's. The author is especially pointed and strong on Patrick Caddell and on Bob Shrum, with Joe Trippi getting honorable mentions. On the one hand, the author slams polling and consulting for distorting both what the people think, and for vacating the value of real leadership--he is compelling in suggesting that the people want leaders to lead with vision and authenticity, rather than follow the numbers like sheep.
Key Point #3: Politics, in its highest form, was Bobby Kennedy in Indianapolis on the night of Martin Luther King's murder by assassination. The author opens with this vignette, the rest of the book is about politics at its lowest form.
Key Point #4: Television has changed how we select our leaders, and this is generally a very very bad thing. In turn, the cost of television advertisements has fueled massive corruption within both parties. Since the airwaves are part of the public broadcast spectrum, it is certainly clear to me that we have to eliminate the cost of television advertising, and demand equal free time for all validated candidates, at all levels. This is a non-negotiable condition for democracy in the multi-media era.
Key Point #5: Witch hunts and negative politics are the stock of the mediocrities that populate both the Republican and the Democratic parties (I am a moderate Republican and consider both parties to be equally corrupt, the Democrats are simply more inept).
Key Point #6: Here the author is supported by Henry Kissinger (see my review of DOES AMERICA NEED A FOREIGN POLICY?), as both consider the speed of politics and the speed of the real world to have dramatically out-paced the sources and methods by which we acquire, evaluate, and act on information. Government--and the U.S. Intelligence Community and the general inter-agency policy deliberation process are, in one word, INCOMPETENT. We desperately need to harness collective intelligence through new open source software and open source intelligence capabilities that are widely and freely available to citizens as well as their elected or appointed representatives.
As a side note, the author documents the very early and heavy engagement of Saudi Arabia in sponsoring sophisticated and sustained polling of American views and concerns. It can be safely suggested that the Saudi Royal Family has funded sufficient polling to know America as well, or better, than most US politicians.
The author believes that the Reagan era killed concepts of civic duty and long term strategic sacrifice, and that a climate of intellectual cowardice and political correctness led to a shutting out of those who would speak plainly or serioiusly.
John Kerry is slammed as a banana peel politician who uses slippery words, Dick Morris is slammed as a charlatan, the Republicans are slammed for slease, anti-society, pro-market (that is to say, pro-already wealthy Wall Street), and for having no policy process (something moderate Republican and former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill supports in the book PRICE OF LOYALTY). The author slams Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks as delusional and unprofessional. As the recent chorus of generals including General Tony Zinni might suggest, the author is probably on solid ground with this assessment.
On a nuanced note, the author considers Shrum to be off-base in advising Senator Edwards to focus on class warfare, as he finds that this mantra is not effective with either the bi-partisan "common guy" or the social conservative "leave me alone" group. Everything I read in this book confirmed my view that the next congressional election needs to be about personal integrity and indepedence and authenticity, and the next presidential election needs to be about electoral reform--about re-engaging and honoring the votes of every citizen, and keeping those who are elected honest after the fact of election.
I may have read a different book than that which has been so demeaned by the other reviewers to date, but I can certainly say that I did read every word of this book, and I found the author to be thoughtful, authentic, and worth every minute that I spent absorbing his views.
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy
Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (Bk Currents)
The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love
The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
 Great title! Anyone want to take a whack at writing that book? April 23, 2006
26 out of 82 found this review helpful
While not being apolitical, I have thus far managed to avoid the political aisle of my bookstore, but fell for this one. Klein has written a meandering, name-dropping memoir fingering a horribly obvious culprit. Boooo consultants! Booooo polls! Uh, hey thanks. It's as if Klein did a brain dump after selecting the two search terms 'polling' and 'consultant.' The big editing job? Put it all in chronological order and link with anecdotes. The book dances around it's thesis (it's tagline) until the final chapter where Klein improbably prescribes his remedy: the consultant should be "a better angel" a conscience and a helpmeet. In the cutthroat era of Karl Rove, this is Pollyanna advice. It's a market-approved non-downer conclusion to his market-tested title.
In all of this Klein never engages any other culprit. Not the politicians, the media or the population. Thank god the office-holders don't think you're stupid (please!). Neither are the absolutely intellectually-dead population that requires simplistic answers to the mess we're in, or the media which provides them, to blame. He could just as easily say the solution is politicians with character, a deeper media and smarter population; but to a man with hammer everything is a nail. The consultant seeks a remedy in consulting.
It has the 50/50 clarity and "me too" authority of someone analyzing the past. It's vitally important that candidates follow the advice of Klein and his ilk except when the candidate gets it completely wrong (as they generally do in Kleins examples) or except when the schmoe can authentic-ly read the will of the people. Well, if they could do that...
All this book is good for is explaining why the impotent democrats will exit both the mid-term elections and the 2008 election with nothing but air in their clutches; why Gore, Kerry and Hillary are all losers.
He did manage to make me warm up a bit to Reagan whom I despise as an amoral dolt, but compared to cadavers like Gore and Kerry, at least he had a "center" he could return to. One era's amoral dolt can look like a genius when W. uses the inertia of the system to flush the country down the toilet.
 The Melodrama of the Mediocre Pundit August 21, 2006
23 out of 31 found this review helpful
It sure is easy for pundits and commentators to get book deals these days, when you can sell a tirade of personal opinions and second guessing as in-depth political analysis. Joe Klein has the added distinction of criticizing other people for doing exactly what he does, and of complaining about political and media trends from which he benefits directly. Klein has a reasonable basic point here about modern lowest-common-denominator politicking, in which image and sloganeering are seen as more important than knowledge and leadership. But Klein, in a display of mind-boggling myopia, can't even see that this exact same phenomenon allows weak and opinionated books like this to qualify as serious political analysis.
Granted, this book gets off to a pretty good start, with a prologue describing a 1968 campaign speech by Robert F. Kennedy, in which RFK spoke intelligently and respectfully to an African American crowd just hours after the Martin Luther King assassination. Klein laments the total disappearance of RFK-style dignity in modern American politics, and vows to analyze what has gone wrong and how modern campaigns can be made intelligent again. But this potential focus promptly disappears without a trace after the prologue. What follows is actually a history of the influence of villainous pollsters and consultants in recent presidential campaigns. Klein usefully criticizes the sappy image experts and number crunchers first, before spending much more time second guessing, with 20-20 hindsight, the losses of unsuccessful candidates.
The unintentional irony of Klein's punditry is unstoppable throughout the book. He complains about everyone else's unyielding ideology while simultaneously, and unilaterally, pronouncing certain positions, such as U.S. military superiority, as "correct" or "unassailable." Klein laments how over-hyped pollsters have made it a liability for politicians to appear realistically human, but then declares that certain presidential candidates (Democrats in general and Al Gore in particular) lost because they didn't appear - you guessed it - realistically human. In another contradiction, Klein forgives George W. Bush for lacking issue-specific knowledge, but later slams Howard Dean for the exact same thing. Klein also fancies himself a nonpartisan because he can criticize and disagree with both Republicans and Democrats, but this is merely an equal-opportunity mutation of the shallow punditry that he disdains from everyone else in his field. Even in these ridiculous political times, it's stupefying how much this book contributes to, and benefits from, the very problems it claims to debunk. But that's what passes for "analysis" these days. [~doomsdayer520~]
Simplistic and Soporific April 20, 2006
21 out of 62 found this review helpful
Klein would have us believe that the U.S. is being run by pollsters, purports to document that consultants have become specialists in caution, and concludes that most politicians are neither risk-takers nor leaders - simply followers of public opinion and convention.
First of all, one could contend that careful polling is essential to democracy, and that good feedback from focus groups is essential to political success. So what's the problem? Simply that, as Klein points out, a truckload of academic studies have proven that voters have only a vague sense of the issues. Thus, taking polls and using focus groups on issues is largely worthless for problem-solving. On the other hand, when well done (eg. Karl Rove), it has worked too well, and going against it is like unilateral disarmament.
Klein uses McCain, Reagan, and Dean as examples of refreshing candidates who have "been themselves," despite consultant pressures. McCain's experience (slimed to death in South Carolina, while losing potential Republican supporters through candor during the 2000 primary), however, was hardly refreshing - and one he is distancing himself from in early '08 jockeying. As for Reagan - Klein contradicts himself by also writing that "Reagan could never have been Reagan without a stage manager like Michael Deaver." And Dean - clearly his spontaneity cost him the nomination.
As for Bush I - he won mainly because of Dukakis' ineptness, and Lee Atwater's capitalizing on that with a series of negative ads. (Similarly with Bush II vs. Kerry - substituting Rove for Atwater.) And it is becoming increasingly hard to envision Bush I doing anything complex intelligently on his own - ergo "Bush's Brain" must be his 2000 secret ingredient. (Meanwhile, Gore vacillated, fired various advisors while presumably being himself, and lost.)
On the other hand, America is facing unpleasant truths in the future - increasing energy shortages (with no easy answers), a need to address terrorism root causes - eg. U.S. support for Israel, a need for increased taxes, and a need to substantially limit "Free" trade. Leadership is required to bring these issues forward and propose/push solutions. Unfortunately, Klein does not make this point as clearly as he should have.
"Politics Lost" does make one good contribution - identifying a primary cause of the Democratic Party's decline. Klein asserts this was its refusal to acknowledge legitimate public concerns about crime, welfare dependency, affirmative action, and forced busing - all of which had a racial dimension. Thus, they ended up tap-dancing around subtle phraseology, unable to speak plainly less someone be offended, or to recognize the pathologies affecting poor blacks.
So, what to do? Klein believes we need candidates who eg. don't think the public is stupid. But what about that truckload of studies proving voters only have a vague sense of issues? Further, President Carter certainly tried leadership on the energy issue - hopefully his biggest mistake was simply being ahead of time.
Asserting that a candidate should not listen closely to credible consultants in today's complex world is prima facie silly. The "real problem" is that lately Democrats have had inept candidates, consultants and an inability to clearly communicate concepts.
Concerned Educator April 22, 2006
21 out of 42 found this review helpful
The descriptive title of this work should alarm us all. Once again, Joe Klein has produced a thought provoking and objective analysis of the current media's impact on American politics. He keenly illustrates the processes by which economic and ideological forces have diminished democracy in this country. A recommended read for those seeking solid information about our present socio-political circumstances.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
