- Hardcover: 356 pages
- Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY); First Edition edition (2 Jun 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0307463125
- ISBN-13: 978-0307463128
- Product Dimensions: 15.6 x 3 x 24.4 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,087,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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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.
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.
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141 reviews
128 of 153 people found the following review helpful
A deep, complex, marvelously written, humorous and thought-provoking book.
3 Jun 2009
Format:Hardcover
Written with a reporter's keen eye for observation, a commentator's penchant for analysis, and the affinity and fondness for humor of an anchorman of late night shows, "Renegade: The Making of a President", a biographical book on President Obama, is a joy to read. Even though this book is based mostly on information gathered by the author during Mr. Obama's campaign for President, it reads like a biography of President Obama because the author has chosen to include a lot of biographical information also.
Interspersed with humor and witty comments throughout the book, the book is a joy to read. For example, when Obama decides to offer the job of Secretary of State to Mrs. Clinton, one of Obama's senior aids says: "There was a lot of encouragement from inside the Senate to get her into this job. They wanted her out of there."
Unlike several of his former colleagues in the senate, Obama holds no grudges and he tends to forgive people: "His staff opposed the idea for the most part, arguing that Clinton would never be truly loyal. But Obama was willing to leave the primaries behind, including his own strong feelings at the time. "I don't hold grudges," he told his aides. "I don't worry about the past. I'm concerned about what happens now. If she can help me and Bill Clinton isn't too much of a liability, we should seriously look at this."
The word "Renegade" refers to the code word the Secret service used for candidate Obama. I have no doubt that the code has now been changed. Those who have read President Obama's two autobiographical books, "Dreams from my Father" and "The audacity of Hope" will get a deeper insight into the President's life, beliefs, philosophy and character. How his work as a community organizer has influenced his thoughts, ideals and beliefs is explained here very lucidly.
"Renegade: The Making of a President" is a complex, marvelously written, deep, humorous and thought-provoking book.
Interspersed with humor and witty comments throughout the book, the book is a joy to read. For example, when Obama decides to offer the job of Secretary of State to Mrs. Clinton, one of Obama's senior aids says: "There was a lot of encouragement from inside the Senate to get her into this job. They wanted her out of there."
Unlike several of his former colleagues in the senate, Obama holds no grudges and he tends to forgive people: "His staff opposed the idea for the most part, arguing that Clinton would never be truly loyal. But Obama was willing to leave the primaries behind, including his own strong feelings at the time. "I don't hold grudges," he told his aides. "I don't worry about the past. I'm concerned about what happens now. If she can help me and Bill Clinton isn't too much of a liability, we should seriously look at this."
The word "Renegade" refers to the code word the Secret service used for candidate Obama. I have no doubt that the code has now been changed. Those who have read President Obama's two autobiographical books, "Dreams from my Father" and "The audacity of Hope" will get a deeper insight into the President's life, beliefs, philosophy and character. How his work as a community organizer has influenced his thoughts, ideals and beliefs is explained here very lucidly.
"Renegade: The Making of a President" is a complex, marvelously written, deep, humorous and thought-provoking book.
72 of 85 people found the following review helpful
Good Outsiders View, A few little known Nuggets, Badly Edited Though
3 Jun 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Wolffe wrote this book at the suggestion of then candidate Obama (a story he outlines in the appendix) and was given some pretty good access to the main players during the campaign. Despite his access, it is still a (well written) outsider's view of the Obama 2008 campaign - you are not going to find Obama or his staff overtly trashing people - they knew when they were talking to Wolffe he might eventually write a book about it. (my favorite little nugget from the book - that Obama loved <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/2/738159/-Renegade">this picture</a>)
If you followed the Obama campaign with any depth, many of the "insider tales" discussed were either covered in the press or blogosphere, but for the casual person, Wolffe's description of the Obama campaign will be a revealing account of some of the behind the scenes motivations and decisions the Obama campaign made.
However, the book is BADLY EDITED. It starts on election night, then jumps back and forth through time. Many of the chapters are way way too long and could have easily been broken into several chapters. Moreover, Wolffe over-relies on passages from Obama's books to fill in Obama's personal history rather than telling Obama's story in a new way.
The biggest problem I had with the book is that the chronology of the Democratic Primary is very loose - one minute Wolffe is discussing the Nevada Caucus and the next he's talking about Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania with nary a mention that Obama ran off a consecutive win streak of 11 primaries and caucuses after Super Tuesday. What gets lost in the telling is the fact that Clinton had mathematically lost the nomination, arguably after Obama's win streak and definitely after Texas, and there is little discussion of David Plouffe's delegate strategy. Because of these omissions, Wolffe misses an opportunity to explain to those who did not follow the democratic primary in detail why Clinton's refusal to concede and her campaign tactics after March 2008 upset so many Obama supporters. You will not find the "inside baseball" discussion of delegates, super delegates and such that seemed to dominate the cable news coverage throughout the spring of 2008. The delegate story was badly reported during the election and Wolffe misses an opportunity to set the record straight. I suppose we will have to wait for Plouffe's or Axelrod's book to hear that tale.
Despite these flaws it is definitely worth a read....
If you followed the Obama campaign with any depth, many of the "insider tales" discussed were either covered in the press or blogosphere, but for the casual person, Wolffe's description of the Obama campaign will be a revealing account of some of the behind the scenes motivations and decisions the Obama campaign made.
However, the book is BADLY EDITED. It starts on election night, then jumps back and forth through time. Many of the chapters are way way too long and could have easily been broken into several chapters. Moreover, Wolffe over-relies on passages from Obama's books to fill in Obama's personal history rather than telling Obama's story in a new way.
The biggest problem I had with the book is that the chronology of the Democratic Primary is very loose - one minute Wolffe is discussing the Nevada Caucus and the next he's talking about Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania with nary a mention that Obama ran off a consecutive win streak of 11 primaries and caucuses after Super Tuesday. What gets lost in the telling is the fact that Clinton had mathematically lost the nomination, arguably after Obama's win streak and definitely after Texas, and there is little discussion of David Plouffe's delegate strategy. Because of these omissions, Wolffe misses an opportunity to explain to those who did not follow the democratic primary in detail why Clinton's refusal to concede and her campaign tactics after March 2008 upset so many Obama supporters. You will not find the "inside baseball" discussion of delegates, super delegates and such that seemed to dominate the cable news coverage throughout the spring of 2008. The delegate story was badly reported during the election and Wolffe misses an opportunity to set the record straight. I suppose we will have to wait for Plouffe's or Axelrod's book to hear that tale.
Despite these flaws it is definitely worth a read....
37 of 46 people found the following review helpful
Unexpected Twist at the End
29 Jun 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Normally, I wouldn't confess my political leanings in a review but it seems fair in this context. I was/am an unlikely Obama supporter -- one of those independents/left wing Republicans described in this book. After intensively studying the issues for a couple of hours I decided to vote for Obama early on because I looked around and noted that What We Were Doing Wasn't Working -- a phrase that I found effectively ended most political arguments.
The good news is that my parents are still speaking to me, although they are careful not to let it get out to their friends.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book until the end when I felt it got, for want of a better term, "mushy". Obama was portrayed exactly as I perceived him -- decisive, ethical, brilliant and most of all steady. In the final chapters, all of the sudden it felt like the author decided to give the President wiggle room on his positions under the heading of "pragmatism." I have had numerous discussions over the last year with relatives -- mostly older-- who characterize the President as a Marxist or a socialist, to which I have always replied "Oh, I hope you are wrong."
I had the same reaction at the end of this book -- I so hope Mr. Wolffe's characterization of President Obama as a slightly different man than the candidate is just wrong. Too many of us have invested too much hope in the President's commitment to change the tone of politics -- dashing those hopes would arguably be as destructive to this country as the absurdity of Iraq.
Overall, a well written book that deserves to be read very carefully.
The good news is that my parents are still speaking to me, although they are careful not to let it get out to their friends.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book until the end when I felt it got, for want of a better term, "mushy". Obama was portrayed exactly as I perceived him -- decisive, ethical, brilliant and most of all steady. In the final chapters, all of the sudden it felt like the author decided to give the President wiggle room on his positions under the heading of "pragmatism." I have had numerous discussions over the last year with relatives -- mostly older-- who characterize the President as a Marxist or a socialist, to which I have always replied "Oh, I hope you are wrong."
I had the same reaction at the end of this book -- I so hope Mr. Wolffe's characterization of President Obama as a slightly different man than the candidate is just wrong. Too many of us have invested too much hope in the President's commitment to change the tone of politics -- dashing those hopes would arguably be as destructive to this country as the absurdity of Iraq.
Overall, a well written book that deserves to be read very carefully.
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