| Renegade: The Making of a President |  | Author: Richard Wolffe
Publisher: Crown
Category: eBooks
In Stock
Rating:  139 reviews
Sales Rank: 19,843
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.932092
Publication Date: May 27, 2009
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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.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 139
 Well written, terrific read! August 12, 2010
Jaye Yaruss (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA USA)
This book is well written with an intellect and command that lets you get the meat without having to wade through anything frivolous or distracting. It gives substance and direction to what is left out of informed conversation and what is spewed on the tube. It bestows upon a deeply meaningful time in our history a reality check that reminds the reader that politics and the workings of government are extremely complex and issues and questions are sticky and seemingly impossible;that it takes a thorough understanding, a massive desire and a willingness to change one's life in ways unimagined, and a deep love for one's country to take on this job.(It isn't the pay or the great invasion of privacy) It also takes tremendous intellect and an ability to see the whole picture with the country's core needs always in mind and heart, to have the guts to spend a lot of money to repair and rebuild a self-destructive country before it dissolves itself, to turn our Titannic around by inviting a self-serving party with no head and all body (the GOP) to get a grip and step up. This book clarified that that party thinks little of the needs, intellect and power of it's own contituency. I could not put this book down. The Promise is next.
Campaigning Ad Nauseam July 27, 2010
Franklin the Mouse (Gorham, ME USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's simple, really. You have to be absolutely out of your friggin' gourd to run for President of the United States. The grueling days. Being under the media microscope. Surrounded with Secret Service. Political gasbags constantly pontificating about your missteps. Break wind and it's on every cable-news station for the umpteenth news cycle. The herculean struggles against Senator Clinton during the primaries. The whole Reverend Wright debacle which led to his historic speech on race. Senator Obama spent 21 months in pursuit of the Holy Grail, but it came with a very, very steep price. Mr. Wolffe lays out a flattering portrait of our 44th President. The book is an exercise in trying to flesh out Barack Obama. How he grew and was tested as a candidate permeate this volume. This book is a good followup to President Obama's own two works, "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." Adversaries will hate. Supporters will love it. The Open-Minded will come to understand a little more as to how and what makes President Obama tick. An illuminating, enjoyable read.
 Obama Deserved Better, as Did His Opponents July 24, 2010
Gail W. Adams (Altadena, California)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yes, I did not vote for Obama. Nevertheless, I wanted to learn more about him than I had learned during the campaign. The book started out well. The description of how he came to decide to make the run for president, and how he put together a group of financial backers, was very interesting. I started to like him more and more. Too bad the author didn't stop in the first third of his book. He soon was jumping back and forth in time. I should have had a calendar in front of me, because I got thoroughly mixed up. Obama was elated at a win. Then he was dejected (oh wait, that was earlier). Through it all the author let his bias show. He is a good enough writer to be able to cleverly pull to pieces Obama's opponents. He savages Clinton, McCain, and George W. Bush, in a way remeniscent of the back-room snickering of young campaign workers. He even manages to destroy the man that he admires. I found the Obama of the first part of the book to be dedicated and fascinating; but by the last half, the writer had turned him into a wooden statue. We were cheated of an unbiased telling of a fascinating election, and Obama was cheated of a well-written record of how he made history.
Excellent, well written book May 28, 2010
Lynnie (Chicago)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Richard Wolffe did an excellent job with this book. I usually don't enjoy non-fiction, but this book is so easy and enjoyable to read, I totally recommend it.Renegade: The Making of a President
 Helped me figure out why Pres. Obama actually pronounces "Pakistan" correctly May 22, 2010
Amod A. Vaze (Montclair, NJ, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I definitely recommend reading Richard Wolffe's book. It goes behind the scenes and explains Barack Obama the person. Also, Wolffe discusses some things left out of Obama's books, like visiting Pakistan with his Pakistani college roommate when he was in college and how he and Michelle Obama were not on speaking terms during his run for Bobby Rush's House of Representatives seat in 2000.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 139
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