Election 2008: A Voter's Guide (A New Republic Book)

By: Foer, Franklin

Featuring the writers and editors of THE NEW REPUBLIC, this handbook for the 2008 presidential election contains information every citizen needs as we head into the primaries. THE NEW REPUBLIC'S... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300126522
• ISBN13: 9780300126525
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 1.0" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

This Book vs `The Undecided Voter's Guide.' Both excellent.

I am reviewing those two books together because they cover the same topic. And, I find a review comparing them more relevant and timely than reviewing them on a stand alone basis. I read them simultaneously on the coverage of the same candidates to observe if I would get different information. I actually got very similar info as I could not detect any political bias. But, the way these books impart the information is different. Thus, there is no difference in substance but there is a huge difference in style. Within `A Voter's guide,' the coverage of each candidate is written by a different writer. After a short curriculum on the candidate, these writers write out a long narrative essay that could qualify as an article in the New Yorker. Those essays also come across as a book summary on the candidates. For a checklist of the candidate's specific position you have to refer to the Appendix. The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from, and How You Can Choose is structurally very different. The entire book is written by a single author. The coverage of each candidate is thoroughly structured as a user friendly manual or almost a college (Presidential) application package. It starts as the Voter's Guide with a curriculum on the candidate. Next, it moves on to a very detailed description of the candidate's position on all major issues. Then it goes on to a narrative section that is less sophisticated than the one in `A Voter's Guide.' Then it systematically covers the following headings: a) Areas of Potential Controversy; b) Why this specific candidate can win the General Election; c) Why this specific candidate can't win the General Election; d) The best case for candidate X presidency; e) The worst case for candidate X presidency; f) What to expect if candidate X is President; g) What supporters say; h) What detractors say; i) Facts and stories; j) Quirks, habits, and hobbies; k) The Undecided Voter's Guide Questionnaire. Another area where the books differ is on setting up the political context. `A Voter's Guide' has an excellent historical analysis of the evolutionary changes within the parties and how they shaped Presidential elections since the late 1800s. This is one of the last chapters in the book, and I recommend you read it first. `The Undecided Voter's Guide' has no counterpart to this thorough historical analysis. Instead, it briefly touches on similar themes within the introduction. But, the latter is not even as thorough as A Voter's Guide's own short introduction. These two books cater to different audiences. `The Undecided Voter's Guide' is excellent to extract a maximum amount of information really quickly. It is an excellent tool for the political novice. `A Voter's Guide,' although better written, does not deliver the information quite so readily and is catered to the more sophisticated reader. I am not talking about intelligence here; I am talking ab

Deep, insightful, and brilliant

The sections on Giuliani, Thompson and Romney are sure to generate the most press, but the genuinely interesting material is on the second tier candidates. For example, I didn't know that McCain's "Straight Talk Express" bus has small silhouettes below the driver's window, keeping tally of the conservatives he's thrown under the wheels. Or that Mike Huckabee once killed 930 people by baptizing them in poisoned grape Kool Aid. Or that Ron Paul was a German concentration camp guard in WW2. This amazing, deeply researched book will tell you everything you need to know about voting in the 2008 Presidential election - but really, all you have to do is read the title of the chapter on Our Next President - "We Love Hillary Clinton."

THE ARMY DIDN'T WIN, EITHER!

What a country! Only once in our history, did one president, (the 2nd one), decide to co-opt the US Constitution; and forcing the Sedition Act, down journalists' throats. Thank goodness John Adams didn't get a second term; and his "act" vanished in 1801. Thomas Jefferson then entered the White House. And, pretty much the RULE that journalists can investigate things on their own; they don't have to swallow PR at all; shows ya that Franklin Foer kept fighting for this principle, above others. Sure, the army tried to get Foer to "surrender" ... the building? In New York City! That's what our army does these days? Pretty much explains the silence; where the army can't get anything happening in Iraq covered. Or else, you'd know for sure that Maliki hates Bush's guts. And, "diplomatically speaking" all we have for our trillions; and years of toil, is a re-emergence of Putin. Reagan's victory against the soviets didn't last long. The Bush's went ahead, promising the moon to the Saud's. Which is a whole other story. If we're lucky? Someday, it will get told. (But not from PR machinery!)

Foer Follies

In this revealing, behind the scenes look at the 2008 presidential campaign, the peerless journalists of TNR uncover - via unsubstantiated, anonymous sources of course - Republican presidential candidates committing multiple atrocities and war crimes while in the field. In Iowa, Fred Thomson and his good ol' boy colleagues mock disfigured WAC WWII vetrans while visiting a VA hospital; Rudolph Giuliani - with the aid of 9/11 rescue workers - excavates a cemetery of undocumented alien victims of the Minutemen and cavorts through New Hampshire will wearing a skull fragment over his bald spot. Finally, Mitt Romney in his fervent search for the golden plates, careens through South Carolina in a Bradley fighting vehicle clad only in his sacred underwear, recklessly luring Log Cabin Republicans within range of the Brad's tracks, and with a deftness not to be found in tracked fighting vehicles, severs them in half and leaves their writhing parts twitching in the waist-deep sewage.

This is a hot one.

The outstanding journalistic integrity of Mr. Foer and TNR will make this book a hot commodity. I can't wait to not get it. I expect that at least a couple dozen will fly off the shelves just in time for Christmas. I smell Pulitzer! Oh wait, that's something else................