Monday, July 12, 2010

Game Change - Chapters 6-8

More of my notes from the book "Game Change." It's the story of the 2008 election, so far, I'm only into the chapters on the 3 Democratic front runners (Obama, Clinton and Edwards). My blogging is about to catch up with my reading, I need to read more!!

As mentioned before, I'll publish some of my notes and comments. Some may not be in full sentence/paragraph form. Where appropriate, I'll put quotes from the book. I would really appreciate your comments as I'm still trying to make up my mind if I like the book.

Chapter 6 -  "This country really is hungry for something fresh and new" (quote from Obama - Was this really true? Was change the goal for most Americans? To get something non-Bush, non-Clinton?)

My comment - Candidate Obama didn't like the way things were going 1/2 to Iowa, so he decided to kick some butt.

Chapter 7 - Edwards' Ego. (I have often worked hard to prepare for the next job. Obama/Edwads/Clinton did too - is this bad? [as I read this comment, I wonder what I really meant})

Elizabeth Edwards had a baby at age 49 & 50

Chapter 6 - "Part of the job of the next president is to break the gridlock and get Democrats and independents and Republicans to start working together to solve these big problems like health care or climate change or energy. And what we don't need is another eight years of bickering" (Obama - pg 146)

Commentary: This reflects much of what I believe about Obama - that he really wants to accomplish things and that he really wants to work with ALL people of all parties. But he wants to work on things that HE thinks are important. Over-taxation and over-governmentalization are not problems in his book. The war on terrorism would go away, if he could just talk to people.

"We have a chance to bring the country together in a new majority" (Obama pg 151 - The country is not "together" any more than previously , in fact it's more fragmented)

Commentary: Bill Clinton is seen as some political guru. The authors of this book seem to treat him with a lot of political respect.

Despite Obama's statements that he would fight clean, his aides fought dirty.

No comments: