The Candidate: Behind John Kerry's Remarkable Run for the White House (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The S-3B Viking jet descended from the cobalt-blue sky at somewhere between 125 and 150 miles per hour and approached the flight deck of the..." (more)
Key Phrases: slingshot strategy, announcement tour, announcement speech, New Hampshire, John Kerry, Howard Dean (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tall, lean, heroic and "decidedly Lincolnesque" is the portrait of John Kerry that emerges from this shallow campaign hagiography. Journalist Alexander (Man of the People: The Life of John McCain) gained insider access to the campaign after he wrote a prescient Rolling Stone article touting Kerry as the Democratic front-runner, and this symbiotic relationship continues here. He acknowledges Kerry’s early problems finding the right tone, but after a campaign shakeup and a makeover in which Kerry loosens up (e.g., he starts diving into audiences for Phil Donahue-style Q&As and learns to "connect on a human level") the candidate becomes a juggernaut. From then on the book is a montage of endorsements, primary triumphs and sound bites from Kerry victory speeches. Vignettes include a breathless recap of Kerry’s Vietnam exploits, tearful communions with fellow veterans, manly photo ops of the candidate piloting a chopper or blasting pheasants from the sky, and a snuggly interview in which Kerry and wife Teresa Heinz talk about their relationship. Substantive issues, like Kerry’s ties to corporate lobbyists and support of NAFTA and the war in Iraq, or Heinz’s refusal to release her tax returns, are fleetingly mentioned and then dropped without comment. Instead, Alexander channels his critical impulses entirely into a gloating attack on the Howard Dean campaign (and, in particular, on Dean’s "bizarre" and "unsettling" howl during the Iowa primary), accusations of anti-Kerry bias among the media, and pointed rehashes of Bush’s questionable military record. Readers will find lots of anodyne boilerplate that almost seems (and sometimes is) scripted by the Kerry organization, but little objective insight into the candidate or the nitty-gritty elements of campaigning.
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Product Description

An all-access pass to the inner workings of the Kerry campaign, the grooming of the candidate, and how decisions get made and who will be making them in the run up to the November election.

Two years ago, veteran journalist and biographer Paul Alexander wrote a piece for Rolling Stone magazine that now seems prophetic: He named John Kerry as the candidate who would emerge as the Democratic front-runner in 2004, and identified the reasons, more than a year before Kerry announced his candidacy. Since then, Alexander has been following the campaign-often from a privileged position on the inside. This book will report what he saw, heard, and witnessed about Senator Kerry and his campaign along the way.

The Candidate will reveal what accounted for Kerry's strong, decisive showing in every political contest since the Iowa primaries, and why none of those factors were evident in the pre-Iowa polls. It will explain how the Kerry campaign staged this surprise turnaround, what voters need to know about what goes on behind the scenes in the Kerry war room, and how the campaign is preparing for the run from July to November. Granted unprecedented access to Kerry's family, his campaign team, his advisers, and members of his inner circle, Alexander sheds new light on the man who would be president.

"Writing a book from the campaign trail presents a unique opportunity to tell an important national story with great immediacy," Alexander explains. "The John Kerry story is dramatic, as is the story of how his campaign came together. This is a very different organization than the one I reported on in 2002. How decisions are being made now is a key indicator of how decisions will be made after the Democratic Convention and in the White House, should he defeat President Bush in November."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (July 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573222933
• ISBN-13: 978-1573222938
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,192,524 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Concise Review of the 2004 Primary, July 28, 2004

By	R. K Shah (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Alexander pens a concise review of the 2004 primary with what he calls an "insiders perspective." Unfortunately what results is not news but rather a simple historical review of what happened. This book is poor on analysis and perhaps even poorer on its account and its claims of access to the candidate and the campaign.

However, for those looking for a short read on the simple events of the 2004 Democratic primary, "The Candidate" will suffice. Unfortunately, if one is searching for the magical key to Kerry's historical turnaround or how the Dean machine fell apart, bitter disappointment is the only result.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Patriot:, January 26, 2005

By	Ian Andrew Skotte - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book truly shows the remarkable man John Kerry really is. It gets away from the portrayl the right-wing media/Fox News gives to this stoic man. I would recommend this book to anyone who is in search for the truth and tired of reading about the lies of those "Swift boat captains" who've shamed the political landscape for years to come.
This book deserves an excellent review.

5 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Kerry "Lincolnesque"?, August 24, 2005

By	Alan Rockman (Upland, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Candidate: Behind John Kerry's Remarkable Run for the White House (Hardcover)

Forgive me while I start laughing. To me, Kerry always looked like a run-down, gaunt twin of the Eagles' much healthier looking Glenn Frey (makes you also wonder who really had the alledged coke habit)

Mr. Alexander's account is nothing but a slavish, fawning account why he liked a guy who besmirched his fellow servicemen, voted against almost every weapon development or intelligence-gathering operation designed to protect us before 9/11. A guy who went down to Nicaragua to endorse the Sandinistas, only to have those Marxist thugs make a fool of him by curtailing the liberties of the trampled Nicaraguan people. A rich patrician married to another rich patrician, both willing to increase our taxes, not only the rich like them, but the poor and middle class like the rest of us. Someone willing to outsource jobs even when Kerry was railing about "Benedict Arnold Corporations". Don't want to believe me? Just ask Teresa - or check those Heinz Ketchup bottles coming straight out of that well-known part of the Union called Canada.

And simply put, a big loser.

"Lincolnesque"? - no, to compare John Kerry to Honest Abe is a terrible insult to a brave, kind, decent man who was our greatest President. Mr. Alexander clearly needs to have his head examined.