What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer

About six weeks ago the good folks at Amazon ran a special in which this seminal political book was available for the Kindle at some ridiculously low price. Long having had it on my to read list I picked it up.

Much as been written about this book over the years. Following in the tradition of Teddy White's The Making of the President Series, only with much more detail and personal history, Cramer's book has for almost two decades been considered the gold standard of political campaign reporting.

In an odd and sad twist when I had made my way about halfway through the book the author, still a relatively young man at 62, passed away. As the tributes flowed in fast and furious if there was any doubt of the importance of what I was reading it soon disappeared.

The book is quite simply a stunning description of the 1988 political race for the Presidency. Following six candidates, four Democrats and the two Republican frontrunners Kramer tells the story of the race through each campaigns eyes as well as providing a significant biography and personal history of each man.

There is much to take away from the book, much indeed, but if anyone is to take away any one thing it is this. The process by which we choose a President, the amount of power the press has to determine the agenda and in many respects the outcome, is beyond measure and out of control. This my friends was in 1988. Imagine now, almost 25 years later how much worse it would be.

It is interesting to note that upon his death how many reporters and members of the media praised this man who, by my estimation, had a great deal of frustration with the role of the press in the campaign.

Reading this book I was struck by a few incidents and stories. To try to offer a view of the book in any detail is beyond a book review or blog post. The book is over one thousand pages, one suspects that is why the initial reviews upon it's release were not that good, the press is and has become, by and large, lazy. Much easier to criticize a book as long winded and filled with minutiae than read it. Over time however the book took hold, people realized how special it was.

It should become a lesson for would be reporters and would be political candidates, a how not to do it if you will. By looking at our press today one suspects however that while they respect the work the lessons are soon lost in the heat of the moment.

If you do not remember on the Republican side that year it was the sitting Vice President George Bush the first versus Kansas Senator Bob Dole. By the end of the book it is very apparent that Cramer had a strong affinity for both these men and their basic goodness. It is surprising in fact to look back, with the benefit of twenty five years of history to see how these two good men, good public servants, truly did not like each other.

Their back stories could not have been different. Poor in Kansas or rich on the East Coast, yet both their parents raised them right. Both served their country heroically. Bush was shot down as a young pilot, Dole suffered life threatening and life changing injuries. Both were party men through the rise and fall of Nixon, both lost to Reagan in 1980 and both considered 1988 their last chance at the Presidency.


On the Democratic side there were a multitude of candidates but it was a truly cannibalistic affair. It was here that the press was out of control. The frontrunner as the field was set was Gary Hart. Hart who had lost to Mondale in 1984 seemed filled with destiny. Resigning his Senate seat in 1986 so he could concentrate full time on the Presidency Hart ended up run out of the race because of as Cramer puts it " the Karacter issue." The scenes of the press as they set upon Hart are truly disturbing. The pack mentality is something that should make anyone, left or right, uncomfortable. The most disturbing thing in the whole story of Gary Hart is how incredibly talented he was. How he was ready to be President, how he had a plan beyond anything any of the other candidates even thought about. Yet, he lost it all. He made mistakes but the press ruined him. One has to wonder if some of the men that Cramer profiles on the press side ever forgave him for showing their unattractive sides.

Joe Biden, our Vice President was also in that race. Just as he was catching fire Biden blew up over the plagiarism charges. Even though he had credited the British politician Neil Kinnock when using the line in previous speeches Biden did not in one speech and the story took hold. There might never have been a man better suited to be President. As he rose in the polls the squeaky clean campaign of Mike Dukakis leaked tapes of Biden speaking and blew the whistle on the Kinnock story. Biden was at worst sloppy but it was a ridiculous story and if anything the laziness of the press in the destruction of Joe Biden was even worse.

Dukakis is portrayed as just what he was. A highly moral, holier than thou Greek American who had been a highly successful Governor who believed in the process. He was aghast when the Biden leak came back to his staff. One has no doubt believing he did not know, but yet he just cannot come across as likable. In retirement as I wrote he is still the same man, proper and good. Yet there is no doubt that his refusal to be a politician, his inability to relate cost him the Presidency.

I write last about Richard Gephardt because his story is probably the most moving in the book. This man who seemed destined for great things. This man who was the ideal Democrat, the liberal. He lost. And as I wrote recently in my political blog there is no example in modern politics of a man who has sold his soul more worse than Richard Gephardt. Read this book and look at all of Gephardt's issues and core concerns. Then look at who he lobbies for today and what sides he has worked for and against in his career since leaving Congress. It is the worst story you will hear this week, this month, this year, it is bad enough to be a bad politician, what Gephardt has done is akin to the Devil being kicked out of Heaven, He is a political Judas. Disgusting in the extreme.

Carve out some time before the next round of Presidential politics. This book should be read before 2016. Then you will have the knowledge of a race 28 years ago, and see how little has changed. In a sense 1988 was the beginning of the end, any leftover regard for the Presidency, much in decline after Watergate, was gone after Reagan left office, after Hart and Biden were run out of office. Four years later we had Bill Clinton who unlike Hart survived his mistakes but it has never been the same. In today's world there is always chum in the water. Richard Ben Cramer describes when any luster in running for the Presidency was lost for good.

Spotify , Pandora and Tune In

How to listen to music let me count the ways. Of all the media, be it movies, television, publishing or music it is clearly music that has been most changed.

Television has been changed by Tivo, Hulu, online viewing and On Demand. We now watch what we want when we want and if we like we just run through the commercials. Of course we have had VCR recording for over 25 years but recording on Tivo is now a simple process. When we watch TV has changed as we have more and easier control.

Publishing has changed. The impending departure of Borders and the questionable future of Barnes and Noble has made clear that bricks and mortar book stores are a dinosaur waiting to expire. Magazines can now be seen online, often for free. If one does subscribe they now need not wait for the mail as you can download and read on your Ipad or other tablet. In short Amazon, UPS and the digitalization of books is changing everything.

Movies are still movies but Netflix is changing the way we watch movies once they leave the theatre. Video stores are all but gone. Netflix and Amazon operate on the same principle. Convenience. Netflix now streams much of their programming thus taking the mail cost out of the picture.

In all three cases we can now choose what we watch but even moreso when we watch it. We no longer have to wait for the mail for a book or a movie, though if we do not mind that is better than going to buy it at a store. We watch the shows we want when we want via on demand or Tivo. We control the when by picking when to watch what we want.

Still music has them all beat. First Napster let us all share and get all we wanted free. That was for the consumer a very good service. As a business model it could not work. Apple created the itunes store and the ipod and soon we were off. Now we could carry countless songs, 14000 for my collection at last count, in a handheld device. When one considers vinyl, casettes, and CD's this is not to be overstated.

Now however we have the next wave. We have Itunes which you can buy from but now we also have Pandora whose IPO when it launches soon should create some new gazillionaries. Pandora lets you with a series of likes and dislikes create your own music channel. You do not pick specific songs but can certainly tailor music that you like.

Now comes the U S launch of Spotify. Huge in Europe they singed a deal with the four major American labels and landed about a month ago. What do they do? Simply let you listen to whole songs or albums or your choosing when you want. This is better than Pandora as you can pick the actual song not just the style of music.

Both Pandora and Spotify claim that after ten hours a month you will have to pay and as costs range from three to ten dollars a month that is a consideration. Still if someone told you that you could listen to anything you wanted for ten dollars a month even listening offline you might consider it less expensive than all those $1.29 purchases on Itunes.


Many other mini miracles are out there too. Amazon now sells music often undercutting Itunes price on files that will of course play easily on your Itunes. Tune In Radio is a fantastic Ipad app that lets you listen to any channel that supports them and for me that has been almost any channel I like. The possibilities are endless.


I am not a technology person but as with the other media forms in music we now have much more control over what we listen to. In a sense we could before of course, but cost could be a factor. When free becomes part of the equation even for only ten hours a month the rules are changed forever.

There is no going back.

The New Yorker Magazine

I love magazines. Our house often will resemble a doctor's office in that i cannot resist a subscription. One of the reasons we get so magazines is that today with advertising revenue being so competitive magazines need to be able to show a high number of subscriptions. Shopping at Amazon one can easily find a magazine such as Time for $15.00. If you only glance at it each week you can gain enough information to make the less than 30 cents a week.

For Christmas this year I received a gift subscription to The New Yorker. Clearly some of the sections about local theatre and movie productions do not apply to me sitting her in Bangor, Maine. In just three weeks, The Talk of the Town Section with small articles on a wide range of subjects, political writing ( with a left slant) and best of all and worth the price the fiction piece in each article.

I enjoy this magazine greatly and will continue to enjoy it. For those that enjoy the short story form this is a great pickup.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

I finished this behemoth of a book by Stephen King recently. Published in November I was able to purchase it from Target for a remarkably low price when Amazon, Walmart and Target were having their price war. The book itself was King at his best. Multitudes of characters who you instantly cared about and wished to see come to a good end. Of course, being a Stephen King book, many of them do not.

While there are quite a few villains in the story the major one is Big Jim Rennie, a caricature of every self important, small town blowhard selectmen you might have come across in your lifetime. The character is that person you have met to the tenth degree and then some and when he reaches his end it is not one you feel bad about.

However, like many of Stephen King's largest books, at least for me, the conclusion does not measure up to the very long lead up. Perhaps this is an unfair assessment of what is still a wonderful read. King sucks you so far into the story in this book, as well as other very long books of his such as Insomnia and It, that perhaps the ending in a book like this cannot measure up to the expectation. On the other hand King's book The Stand is still the best thing he has ever written and to me at least had no weaknesses in the beginning, middle or end.

The Stand's place in popular culture was reaffirmed this fall as the Swine Flu epidemic heated up and I heard a few radio personalities talking about Captain Trips and dreaming about Mother Abigail. No other book of King's has so permeated our popular culture.

Under the Dome is a good book. It also represents a significant investment in time. However, I subscribe to the too many books too little time philosophy so urge an informed decision. If you have not read The Stand pick that one up instead, you will not be disappointed.