The Audacity to Win by David Plouffe

The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory by David Plouffe (Viking 2009)

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 looked to be the most amazing upset. As a young and vibrant black senator with negligible experience who would not only have to go in and carry all the states won by John Kerry back in the 2004 election but make inroads into traditionally red states Obama did not seem to have an obvious path to victory. This book shows how the impossible was achieved, not just defeating McCain but triumphing over the other must beat candidate, Hilary Clinton.

Beating Clinton was quite an achievement and nearly the first half of the book is dedicated to the first year spent almost entirely in Iowa building up a phenomenal grass roots base and putting Obama on the map. Winning Iowa would mean building up the momentum that, a long way down the line, finally brought him the nomination. His path to victory was built upon expanding the electorate, registering new voters, appealing to moderate republicans and campaigning in the counties and areas of the states which would maximise his delegate count and thus secure him the nomination.

The book shows Obama to be better organised, better prepared, better disciplined, better financed and running to a better strategy than either Clinton or McCain. There is a lot to admire in the way they fought these campaigns, the grass roots organisations they built up rather than relying on in-state old party king-makers, the use of new media to communicate with members and supporters and often to break news directly to the party first is all commendable. One cannot help but feel that they these are people who know the system and played to the system. Against Clinton the focus of the campaigning was winning the delegates and against McCain it was about playing the board making the best electoral college arithmetic and arrive at the magical number 270. At no point do you feel that winning the popular vote was a real concern and I guess that just means that they were smart but one cannot help but consider the efficacy of an electoral system that would allow the popular vote to be a secondary concern.

A very interesting dose of insight!

4/5

The End of the Party by Andrew Rawnsley

The End of the Party: The Rise and Fall of New Labour by Andrew Rawnsley (Viking 2010)

The Servants of the People published in 2000 chronicled Labour's election and first term in power, this book details everything that has happened since. Rawnsley, political columnist for the Observer, quotes from quite an impressive array of sources as he writes the story of New Labour, 9/11 and the war on terror, the Iraq War and the dodgy dossier that got us there and the financial crisis. It also goes into deep details of the personalities and conflicts between the main protagonists.

Rawnsley comes across as quite Blairite and for him other than when he details the David Kelly affair in which is he quite vitriolic about Blair's involvement, he is portrayed almost as the man who can do no wrong and when things do not turn out as they should, the finger of blame is nearly always pointed at Brown and those in his team who push him into being more extreme than he would be on his own (all of Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls, Ed Milliband and Damian McBride do not come out of this book looking good). In a chapter entitled 'the long goodbye' he details what he sees as the highlights of TB's 13 years in power:

"generous investment in health and education which reversed years of neglect of the public realm. State-funded childcare was introduced alongside the minimum wage. There was considerable redistribution, mainly the work of Chancellor, from the affluent to the poor. Tax and benefit changes since 1997 broadly raise the incomes of the poorest fifth of society. This was not enough to entirely counteract the global forces which were stretching the inequalities and the super-rich continued to pull away from every one else...he left Britain wealtheir and more diverse, but not much happier than how he found it."

The book received a great deal of press pre-publication for the details of Gordon Brown's temper and the book paints him as palpably mad. He is seen as moody, sulking, petty and violent. The reason, it is made to look, that there was no real challenge to Brown for the Labour leadership is that he crushed any promising talent that might challenge what he viewed as his solemn right to govern Britain. He and his team are shown to continually brief and leak against Blair, the content of his budgets were rarely divulged up to a couple of hours before they were announced when they were already at the printers and he is shown to be the worst micro-manager possible.

The book is far from perfect and you are painfully aware that the author is still working with the people he is writing about and so tries to stay away from making personal judgement. However in an election year and despite whatever economic competence he portrays Brown as having you cannot but arrive at the conclusion that Gordon Brown is insane.

An interesting if not biased account.

4/5