Customer Reviews

How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election (Vintage)

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If you're interested in the voting characteristics of the states, then you'll really like this book. Todd and Geiser give a pretty objective re-cap of the primary and general election campaigns in the introduction, and then go state-by-state, grouping them into "battlegrounds," "receding battlegrounds," "emerging battlegrounds," and "red/blue" states. Democrats will enjoy this more than Republicans, since the authors continually point out the demographic and ideological trends that are moving in the democrats favor. To their credit, though, they point out how this movement may be unique to this election or ultimately unsustainable, and does point out republican advantages in certain areas.

Mostly, the analysis is spot on, and they reveal some interesting characteristics and patterns that even a junkie like me didn't catch. Still, I have a couple issues with their analysis.

First, the youth vote. The authors say it was "overrated" for the most part and only made the difference in 2 states. They say this due to the fact that their turnout rate only increased by 1%, which didn't meet the inflated expectations of some. However, Obama won this vote by 66-32. No prior candidate, in the history of exit polling, EVER won any age cohort by such a large margin. The closest was Reagan in 1984, but by 20, not 34 points. Clearly, this indicates that republicans have some extremely serious problems with younger people that have only gotten worse since 2000. George W. Bush may have turned an entire generation away from his party.

Second, the 5 "emerging" battleground states. Georgia, Nebraska, and Texas don't belong here. If Obama couldn't win GA in this environment, there is little chance for democrats down the road. GA has been trending red the last decade. And Texas's status is that it "might" be a battleground in 10 years. Well, by that logic so might California, since political fortunes will certainly change in a decade.

Also, the authors are of the belief that the Republicans' problem is that their brand of conservatism no longer works well outside the south. They content that republicans must become more moderate to gain back footholds in the west, northeast, and midwest. I think this is questionable, since social issues like abortion and gay marriage were not really a part of the 2008 campaign, so it's impossible to judge whether or not such "moral values" were being rejected or not.

To me, it's more a problem with their marketing/branding techniques than their beliefs. Their essential messages of low taxes, low spending, smaller government, strong defense, and personal responsibility have all enjoyed popularity throughout America's history. It's just that they no longer know how to communicate this effectively.

Finally, in their descriptions of the campaign, the authors were far too generous in describing the effect of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP choice. Saying that she "stumbled" in some interviews is far too nice. She was incoherent. Then she became a polarizing figure. She may not have lost the election for McCain but she did not help one bit. Anywhere she might have helped were states McCain was already going to win.

There was a fairly large number of grammatical errors peppered throughout the book. Indicative of sloppy editing, but judging from the displays at the bookstore, it looks like publishers wanted to get a slew of Obama-themed books out for the inauguration.

Overall, though, a good book for a fair price. It's a quick read, and an excellent reference for political watchers. I recommend it.

Todd and Gawiser provide a very insightful examination of the 2008 presidential campaign. The book includes two basic sections: an introduction which has overall analysis of the `08 primaries and general election, and the aforementioned state by state compilation of general election results. More than a post mortem on the historic campaign that just ended, the book includes many lessons for 2012 and the future of U.S. political party alignment.

Written by two noted "numbers guys", I expected the book might be a little dry, but was pleasantly surprised by how Todd and Gawiser were able to make the demographic and polling data they provide come alive with shrewd, sometimes even humorous, analysis. I especially enjoyed their tongue-in-cheek captions (such as "Greatest Side Show on Earth", "Georgia: A Battleground on My Mind"). There's also lots of really interesting tidbits of inside information from the campaigns sprinkled throughout. Overall, How Barack Obama Won is a terrific read for anyone interested in politics.

If you paid attention to Chuck Todd during the primaries and general election, as you well should have, many of the notions in his and Gawiser's book will sound familiar. All of that is gathered here in one well-written, no-nonsense analysis that as usual, doesn't fail to fascinate. Even though we know the end result, you're sure to learn some aspects of the voting that may surprise you and where the conventional wisdom did and did not hold up.

I have always been interested in everything that Chuck Todd has spoken about,especially since the time the elections started heating up(was that about three yrs ago,lol),anyway I found it amazing that a book about one election could be such an interesting read,Chuck needs to keep writing books.

To discover who voted for Barack Obama and why, a reader could do no better than look at this report by NBC's Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser. Their investigation was based on exit polling, supplemented by telephone interviewing of absentee and early voters.

Obama's campaign demonstrated far better organization than McCain's. Of particular interest was Obama's success with those Hispanic voters who had voted for Bush four years earlier. Obama was also quite popular among youths, although rather surprisingly their turnout did not differ significantly from youth turnouts during past elections. Especially noteworthy were the inroads Obama made among suburbanites and moderates. Middle-of-the-road voters moved Democratic in considerable numbers. A major concern of voters was the economy,overshadowing the Iraq War,and Obama and Democrats were more successful than Republicans in convincing voters of competence in handling the economy effectively.

The authors concluded that Obama's victory set the stage for Democratic dominance for several years. Only time can prove their view. Unanticipated occurances can easily alter political events. Democrats could be hurt by various situations, such as a further decline in the economy, a major international disaster, a Democratic successor lacking Obama's charisma, and Republican success in appealing to independents. Nevertheless, the authors presented strong evidence that Republicans will face high odds for many years in their quest to regain power. It is hard to see how they could dislodge Obama.

Anyone interested in politics will find the book fascinating, and it will be a useful tactical guide for both parties during future elections. Obama's presidency will draw the attention of many people over the years, and all will have to give attention to this study.

Interesting state-by-state drill down on various sectors of the population and how they voted. Overall, it doesn't bode well for the future of the GOP as they grow older, whiter, and more Southern. Unless there is a change, they could become the old Dixiecrat Party. What they mostly lost were independents and moderates, while their evangelical base continues to hold strong.

This book is a little different than most of the other Obama books out right now. It gives a break down of all the number crunching, polling, demographics, and strategy that surrounds the number of votes. It's not touchy-feely, making it a great book for real information about winning a campaign. This book should be read by anyone who plans to run for office or work on a political campaign.

In the rush to get Obama books out before the inauguration, "A Long Time Coming" and "How Barack Obama Won" stand up to more scrutiny than most. Mr. Todd's and Mr. Gawisier's book is both a micro and macro look at the 2008 election. The book starts out slow, making the claim that 2008 could signal the end of `20 years of political chaos' as the authors put it. One may find this to be a rather dubious claim because the facts bear out that since 1988, Republicans have won three out of the last five Presidential elections and since 1994 to 2006 have dominated both houses of Congress. Despite this rather slow start, the authors then analyze the early part of the election, in which the early `frontrunners' struggle to find a message, and, in turn, opened themselves up to insurgency candidates. The simple fact of the matter is that someone had to win the Republican nomination, and the candidate that made the least amount of mistakes ultimately did that. Giuliani focused too much on Florida. Huckabee didn't have enough centrist pull, and Romney appeared to be insincere, and by process of elimination, you had John McCain. Since his campaign essentially did nothing right except be the last person standing, by the time he met Obama, it was almost a fait accompli that his campaign was doomed. On the other hand, after fighting off the Clinton machine from Iowa to Puerto Rico to California, the Obama campaign was battle tested and ready. The authors stress that the Obama candidacy was not a fait accompli against Clinton, but Obama took advantage of the fact that the Democractic primaries had proportional awarding of delegates based on the voting, so after Super Tuesday it just came down to a matter of cold hard arithmetic that eventually doomed the Clinton campaign. "Had the Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania contests been held in February, and Virginia, Wisconsin, and Mississippi in May, there may have been another nominee." Of course that counterfactual scenario didn't happen and after Obama was toughned up by Clinton, taking on a dysfunctional McCain organization seemed like kid's play. While the McCain campaign may have staggered the Obama campaign a couple times (like a Guerilla fighter as Mr. Brokaw says in this book), the economic collapse, and the unpopularity of the Republican brand made it so that even a generic Democratic candidate (read: John Kerry) may have been triumphant in November. After their rather succinct analysis of the election, the authors go on into a state-by-state survey of voting behavior in 2008. At this point, the book became somewhat of a drag after reading the chapter on the battleground states, because when a state is solidly blue or red, what else is there to talk about? However, in the next election cycle, I plan on keeping this book with its great statistical information to see if 2008 was indeed a watershed year or just an aberration in a center right country.

What an enlightening and interesting book. In 1960 Theodore White wrote 'Making of the President' a book that finally allowed the public in on behind the scene in political campaigns. Mr. White followed up with subsequent books 'Making of the President 1964, 68 and 72.' This started a tradition of books on the campaigns by Joe McGinnis; Jules Witcover and Jack Germond; and of course the famous 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail' by Hunter S. Thompson. Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser have followed wonderfully in this tradition with their book 'How Barack Obama Won' which is an analysis with detailed statistics and information on the 2008 primary and general election, which is perhaps the greatest presidentail primary and general election, eclipsing those of Jefferson-Adams and Adams-Jackson. The Todd and Gawiser book has the excitement of the White books; the description of events as the Thompson book; and the drama of the Robert Murray book, 'The 103 Ballot: Democrats and the Disaster in Madison Square Garden.' This book should be recommended to all people who want to know how their political system really works; and the planning and strategy that goes behind a succesful campaign. I hope Libraries, newspapers, magazines and Ophra take up the cause and recommend this book. The only criticism I have is that there is no hardbound edition. Any one out there thinking of running for office should definately read this book. Could the Todd and Gawiser book be turned into a movie much like the Robert Redford, Mike Barnickle movie 'The Candidate?' It would be entertaining for sure!

This book is like one really long term paper and/or Harvard Business School case study. There's a couple of pages of text followed by pages and pages of stats. This is done for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia!

What I liked most was the introduction, which went through each stage of the process. I was especially fascinated by two points he made about how Obama was the only one of the three major candidates to give a speech announcing his candidacy, which caused him to write down his ideas on paper that his staff used as their goals. (Think "Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind" from the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People".) Also, the way the McCain people dismissed Biden as a VP possibility because he's be too logical. To paraphrase the book: it's one thing to create an image in the media; it's another thing to believe it yourself.