WOLFEE2

Wolfe, Richard (2009) Renegade: the making of a president   New York: Crown Publishers   346

It all starts with a chaotic genealogy. Or. Should one say complex genealogy? The usual story line should run something like this. Barry Obama was born in Chicago to a single mother, worked his way through public schools and from there won a scholarship to Ivy universities and to the presidency. That is a nice neat category.

Here are Obama’s categories. Born in Hawaii, he moved to Indonesia, from there to Kansas then California, New York and finally Illinois. His father is a Kenyan and a lapsed Muslim turned Agnostic. Father has PhD from prestige university in the states. Second father is partially Asian and third “father” is his grandfather who is Caucasian. Mom is

White and from Kansas. She earned her PhD from prestige university.  She has worked at teaching and consulting at foundations. Barack through hard work and political skill became the first bi-racial black president of the USA*.

And that is just the beginning of the story. Much of the first part of the book is a replay of Obama’s first book DREAMS OF MY FATHER. Wolfe with a ton of worthwhile credentials has unearthed and recreated Teddy White’s THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960,64,68, and 72. That means that historical fact is  generally accurate but there is a special political drama that adds to the first bi-racial Black president, just  as White’s first one was about a Roman Catholic who made it to the White house. Further, Wolfe shares some of Obama’s struggle. Wolfe looked different than the boys and girls in his elementary school. He is both English and Mediterranean and so there is a broad connection to the two.

We begin to see that Obama knows how to wrap Organization around Charisma. Thus, in my caucus, there were more Obama supporters than all the candidates supporters combined. It isn’t Iowa, it is heaven. That’s what was said in a classic movie. Half of the state is plains and the other half is great lakes. Iowa is held together by the west coast Missouri river and the east coast Mississippi. Obama won big and is on his way to the white house.

Well, no. Obama and Clinton fight it out for months. It is really a personality contest. They both believe about the same things. However, week after week, the cable news channels got to the point where they didn’t trust any polls. What Clinton did was spend big on people who were thought to be A- listers. They ran an old campaign. Obama had hungry types who knew how to work the complex technology and a huge army of students and union workers.

Finally, Senator Clinton gracefully concedes. In the mean time other melodramas that could have been serious to another candidate did not undo Barack. By the time of the

run for the presidency, he was exhausted. However, he had a great team in place, the crash of October 2008 kept expanding and Senator McCain made some critical errors.

Where Barack was cautious, McCain appeared impulsive. He also chose a very  attractive, charismatic candidate for vice-president

 that was not intellectually prepared by her handlers to speak the talk of Washington. She kept the red meat conservative base, but the elder McCain was edged out by Obama in the debates. McCain forgot how many houses and condos that he had, and had a caner that was in remission and the man was old but strong.

By the time of the election, polls were all over the place, but an electoral avalanche was in the making. Obama ran on centrist issues and for the most part has continued to do so since taking office.

In taking office, and in Teddy White style Wolfe recalls the tears running down the face of Black folk like world known Oprah Winfrey and Jesse Jackson. If drama is back, so is the center-Left forces of America. However, this time around center Left is so more cautious and reasonable. Burn a flag and make non-negotiable demands put the party back in obscurity for another 30 years.

This is one of those books that have become a best seller. If you read it, you will understand why sales are so good.