McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Foreword)
Key Phrases: field producers, sound techs, network techs, Rolling Stone, South Carolina, Twelve Monkeys (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wallace's inexperience as a campaign reporter is an advantage here, leading to unvarnished insights." (Miami Herald Ariel Gonzalez )

"Bracingly insightful." (New York Times Book Review Pankaj Mishra )

"Wallace conveys a geniuine disillusionment at the sham of the whole arrangement: the endless political posturing, the robotic news coverage...At the same time, he recognize's McCain's essential magnetism." (Los Angeles Time Book Review Steve Almond )

"Compelling...A patient and thoughtful meditation on what McCain's military past-specifically, his five-plus years as a prisoner of war-means about his moral fiber." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution Kevin Canfield )

Product Description

Is John McCain "For Real?"


That's the question David Foster Wallace set out to explore when he first climbed aboard Senator McCain's campaign caravan in February 2000. It was a moment when Mccain was increasingly perceived as a harbinger of change, the anticandidate whose goal was "to inspire young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest." And many young Americans were beginning to take notice.


To get at "something riveting and unspinnable and true" about John Mccain, Wallace finds he must pierce the smoke screen of spin doctors and media manipulators. And he succeeds-in a characteristically potent blast of journalistic brio that not only captures the lunatic rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign but also delivers a compelling inquiry into John McCain himself: the senator, the POW, the campaign finance reformer, the candidate, the man.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; 1st Back Bay Pbk. Ed edition (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316040533
• ISBN-13: 978-0316040532
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #441,073 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a new book!, May 27, 2008

By	taews (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews

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If you have read Consider the Lobster, you have already read this book! I feel very deceived to have bought it. This newly released book is a chapter from Consider the Lobster for which Wallace spent time with McCain's campaign bus in 2000! This is NOT about the current 2008 campaign. I'm extremely disappointed at the crass commercialism of the publisher and/or Wallace for re-releasing old stuff with a new name just to cash in on the current presidential campaign. I should have given it 1 star, but if someone has not read the piece already, he or she would enjoy this book.

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Important to know the context of this book was 2000, not 2008, September 13, 2008

By	jubster "guitar funk" (Seattle) - See all my reviews

Given DFW's recent tragic death (and the election timing of this re-release), I'd imagine alot of folks may now discover this book. What Wallace wanted current readers understand about the context, he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview from June 2008. Here's the excerpt:

"The essay quite specifically concerns a couple weeks in February, 2000, and the situation of both McCain [and] national politics in those couple weeks. It is heavily context-dependent. And that context now seems a long, long, long time ago. McCain himself has obviously changed; his flipperoos and weaselings on Roe v. Wade, campaign finance, the toxicity of lobbyists, Iraq timetables, etc. are just some of what make him a less interesting, more depressing political figure now--for me, at least. It's all understandable, of course--he's the GOP nominee now, not an insurgent maverick. Understandable, but depressing. As part of the essay talks about, there's an enormous difference between running an insurgent Hail-Mary-type longshot campaign and being a viable candidate (it was right around New Hampshire in 2000 that McCain began to change from the former to the latter), and there are some deep, really rather troubling questions about whether serious honor and candor and principle remain possible for someone who wants to really maybe win. I wouldn't take back anything that got said in that essay, but I'd want a reader to keep the time and context very much in mind on every page."

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Originally from Consider the Lobster, September 16, 2008

By	a. "devoted reader" (Upstate, NY) - See all my reviews

So if you have any interest in his other essays, read that book instead of this one. While this is not a bad essay, note the timing of its re-release during a year when McCain is running for the Presidency of the US. Note also that Wallace, recently deceased, had changed his opinion of McCain, as per an interview he gave in May 2008: [...]