A Long Time Coming (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Staff of Newsweek (Editor)
Key Phrases: debate prep, campaign plane, New Hampshire, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Newsweek editor Thomas gathered the gleanings of various Newsweek colleagues to create an adroitly distilled chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama, the first African American president of the U.S. This easily devoured, crisply anecdotal account, spiked with revealing, side-of-the-mouth comments, charts the most cautious and reckless of political maneuverings and provides in-action portraits of the major players, both obvious and behind-the-scenes. Hillary Clinton is indecisive; Bill Clinton is “disastrous.” John McCain, crabby and truculent, allows his “inner Dennis the Menace” to take over. And, most vividly, here is Barack Obama, reflective and restrained, a “relentless self-improver” with a “think-first instinct” and “ironic detachment.” Thomas and company observe Obama meeting with his disciplined staff, writing his speeches longhand, prepping for debates, and striving to avoid the pitfalls of campaigning, from fatty food to taking the bait of adversaries. Readers catch telling glimpses of surefire Axelrod and the Obama nerd squad and are privy to inside-the-tent discussions of race and get-out-the-vote strategies. Thomas writes that Obama, an avid reader and gifted writer, sees himself as “a figure out of literature,” and, indeed, real-life stories don’t get more compelling than this. --Donna Seaman

Review

Alan Brinkley, New York Times Book Review, January 18, 2009
“For sheer speed and competence, the most impressive of these recent books is Evan Thomas's "Long Time Coming," compiled from the reporting of the political writers of Newsweek (a magazine for which I occasionally write). A perceptive, smoothly written, and generally fair minded account of both presidential campaigns, it is, nevertheless, a contribution to the creation of the superhero image that has surrounded Obama over the last six months."

Shelf Awareness, January 7, 2009
“Briskly told, entertaining.”
 

Donna Seaman, starred Booklist review
“An adroitly distilled chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama….This easily devoured, crisply anecdotal account, spiked with revealing, side-of the-mouth comments, charts the most cautious and reckless of political maneuverings and provides in-action portraits of the major players, both obvious and behind-the-scenes….Thomas writes that Obama, an avid reader and gifted writer, sees himself as ‘a figure out of literature,’ and, indeed, real-life stories don’t get more compelling than this.”
 

Chris Matthews, MSNBC “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” January 20, 2009
“…candy.”

PoliticsUSA.com, January 28, 2009
“A clear, concise, and fast read…The editors did a fantastic job weaving together a storyline that is both clear and compelling. It is all here, the calm of the Obama campaign, the dysfunction and infighting of the Clinton campaign, and the McCain campaign’s constant internal battle over competing directions and narratives…We all know how the story of the 2008 election ended. The fun in this book is the behind the scenes account of how we got there.”
 

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: PublicAffairs; Revised edition (January 6, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 1586486071 ISBN-13: 978-1586486075 Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,711 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) Popular in this category: (What's this?) #46 in  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > Elections

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More About the Author

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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
debate prep, campaign plane

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New Hampshire, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Lindsey Graham, The New York Times, South Carolina, Rick Davis, Election Day, Secret Service, White House, Reverend Wright, Straight Talk Express, David Axelrod, Mark Salter, Michelle Obama, Patti Solis Doyle, Joe Biden, Valerie Jarrett, New Media, Nicolle Wallace, Harold Ickes, David Plouffe, Mark Penn, Super Tuesday

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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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	64% buy the item featured on this page: A Long Time Coming 3.4 out of 5 stars (14) $19.51
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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews 5 star:  (4) 4 star:  (4) 3 star:  (2) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:  (3)           Average Customer Review 3.4 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 43 of 45 people found the following review helpful: 1.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly disappointing. A word-for-word reprint of the original Newsweek article., January 13, 2009 By  Jennifer in Cincinnati - See all my reviews As a political junkie, I always look forward to the Newsweek Election Book. Newsweek has always called this reporting "The Project;" it's a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the presidential campaign, and it never fails to deliver. After this historic election, one of the most intriguing ever, I just could not WAIT for the Newsweek book to come out! I was thrilled when, the day after the election, Newsweek.com published on their webpage what I thought was a very, very huge "excerpt" of the forthcoming book, always released in early January following an election. The November 17th, 2008 issue print edition of Newsweek was almost entirely composed of this "The Project" and I was happy to have the issue so I could preserve the original "excerpt." So, imagine my surprise when I purchased "A Long Time Coming" for $[...] and settled into what I hoped would be a long evening of reading the book and filling in all the details that were left out of the magazine and online versions. With just a simple glance through the book, I realized ever chapter was titled the same as the November article, and was presented in the same sequential order as in the book. So, starting to feel pretty disappointed, I pulled out my Nov. 17th Newsweek and got to comparing the two. Down to the punctuation, this book is merely a reprint. Word for word! The book includes a pretty lame "Epilogue" as well as a rather uninteresting interview with President-Elect Obama at the end, but other than these additions, the book is just a complete copy of the original article! Including the photographs!! Of course I'm returning the book. Why pay $[...] when I have the original Newsweek issue for $[...]? Heck you can read the entire book for free online at Newsweek.com, still! I find it incredibly dishonest of Newsweek to not alert purchasers of this book that it is just a reprint of the original piece. One final nitpick... you'd think that by printing the book, they would have corrected some of the major factual errors that appeared in the original piece. For example, in the original version the writers wrote that Hillary Clinton's sniper fire exaggeration occurred in April, when it occurred in March. This error was not corrected in the hardback edition of the book I purchased. So, gentle readers, please avoid this book and try to just find a backissue of that Newsweek. Or go online. But don't waste your money on this disappointing book. 35 of 40 people found the following review helpful: 1.0 out of 5 stars Same as the magazine article - agh!, January 7, 2009 By  Amy Kennedy - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    I bought this for $22.95 believing it was different than the lengthy Newsweek article done just after the election by Evan Thomas and others, still available at the magazine's website for free. It looks to be exactly the same. There is no mention in the book that it is merely a reprint. Very disappointed. 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Behind the Scenes, January 26, 2009 By  Publius (Utopia) - See all my reviews Barack Obama's historic election in 2008 may mark the resurgence of a dormant liberalism philosophy that has been dormant since the breakdown of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. If this turns out to be true, the 2008 campaign will be studied, analyzed and written about for many years from now. "A Long Time Coming" is probably the first in a long and interminable line of books about the election. It is often said that journalism is the first draft of history and as such, this book provides the closest understanding we have of the inside players and the decisions that made the election of Obama possible. There is an old saying that "victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan." As such, the conventional wisdom was that almost every strategic decision that McCain and his inner circle made tended to be disastrous. But, if one takes a closer look at the numbers, and especially the battleground states of Colorado, Virginia, Ohio and Florida, the switching of a few thousand votes may have made a huge and ultimately monumental difference in the outcome. If those votes had been switched around, the narrative may have been how John McCain pulled off an historic upset on the scale of Truman in 1948. However, it didn't happen that way, so every mistake that McCain made, from the picking of Sarah Palin to the short lived suspension of his campaign in September is magnified ten thousand times over. Whereas , everything that Obama did was brilliant from focusing on the caucus states early on to using the internet to woo new voters and most especially donors. In the appendix to this book, Mr. Obama, in an interview even says that there was a lot of on the job training going on in 2007, and but for his triumphal speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa in late 2007, we may have just inaugurated the first Woman president, rather than the first African American one. However, the point that Mr. Evans makes, and makes rather well, is that in politics, the simple things matter. Obama was probably the most effective candidate, in recent memory, at staying on message throughout his campaign, while McCain's campaign was reduced to a series of gimmicks that unfortunately stand at odds with the selfless patriot and hero that McCain was. This book was, for the most part, taken from the Newsweek cover story in the week after the election, and does not expand on it, except for a brief introduction by Newsweek editor Mr. Meachem and an interview with Mr. Obama conducted during the middle of the election. But in a year that saw the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression, the party that represented the status quo had a tough road, but certainly the infighting in Mr. McCain's campaign did not help, and may have made Obama's victory a sure thing. In fact, the author writes that McCain's inner circle knew it was over a month before the election. The real history of this election, is that if someone like a John Kerry had won the nomination, there is probably a very good chance that he could have won with the way the economy was going, but the fact of the matter is that we will never know. In the future, the ebbs and flows of the 2008 campaign will be memorialized in books, documentaries and probably movies, but read this book and prepare for the tumult ahead as the facts become more legend then anything grounded in reality.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars A Political Play-by-Play Evan Thomas employs his Newsweek style to good effect in A Long Time Coming. While this is a familiar style of recounting events of a long presidential campaign, Thomas breaks up... Read more Published 4 months ago by M. Schwindt 1.0 out of 5 stars THE MEDIAS SUPERHERO HAS MET REALITY AND ITS HIS KRYPTONITE More cult of personality nonsense from our media. I am beginning to wonder about the freedom of the press if it continues to do things like doggedly promote the magic man, the... Read more Published 4 months ago by EAJ 3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but why use words most folks won't understand This book had some interest, but I was really putoff by the author's strange choice of words: screeds, meritocrats, imperium, preternaturally (twice), amanuensis (twice),... Read more Published 5 months ago by Donald M. Shepherd 5.0 out of 5 stars inside the election of 2008 Obviously a lot goes on during an election that shouldn't meet the eye before election day - Newsweek had reporters inside observing everything but embargoed until after the... Read more Published 7 months ago by Frank Weil 2.0 out of 5 stars A Long Time Coming The book was enjoyable for me as I love all things politics. However, there was nothing new in terms of what was going on behind the scenes while events were taking place during... Read more Published 7 months ago by Agnes Meo 4.0 out of 5 stars Reliving '09 Election Pure opium for political junkies. It tells the story of this long and historic election. To anyone who hasn't been on Mars for the last two years, much of it (but by no means... Read more Published 8 months ago by Sue N.Y.C. 5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting I really enjoyed this book, a great recap of the election. I saw on some other reviews that is just a reprint of the articles in the Newsweek magazine. Read more Published 8 months ago by N. Gargano 3.0 out of 5 stars Did not meet the hype For those of us, hooked on Obama's campaign from the beginning, Thomas's book didn't really have a lot of new behind the scenes information. Read more Published 8 months ago by Michael Singer 5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating account. This is a nicely presented story of the tide that swept Obama into the White House and into what appears to be a place of unique influence around the world. Read more Published 9 months ago by Glennalyn Lea 4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable if Spare Recap of an Exceptional Campaign I enjoyed this book very much. It's a fast read with effective juxtaposition of what was going on in each major campaign at the same approximate time. Read more Published 9 months ago by Scott Billigmeier Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; Revised edition (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586486071
• ISBN-13: 978-1586486075
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,711 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #46 in

  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > Elections

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly disappointing. A word-for-word reprint of the original Newsweek article., January 13, 2009

By	Jennifer in Cincinnati - See all my reviews

As a political junkie, I always look forward to the Newsweek Election Book. Newsweek has always called this reporting "The Project;" it's a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the presidential campaign, and it never fails to deliver.

After this historic election, one of the most intriguing ever, I just could not WAIT for the Newsweek book to come out! I was thrilled when, the day after the election, Newsweek.com published on their webpage what I thought was a very, very huge "excerpt" of the forthcoming book, always released in early January following an election. The November 17th, 2008 issue print edition of Newsweek was almost entirely composed of this "The Project" and I was happy to have the issue so I could preserve the original "excerpt."

So, imagine my surprise when I purchased "A Long Time Coming" for $[...] and settled into what I hoped would be a long evening of reading the book and filling in all the details that were left out of the magazine and online versions. With just a simple glance through the book, I realized ever chapter was titled the same as the November article, and was presented in the same sequential order as in the book. So, starting to feel pretty disappointed, I pulled out my Nov. 17th Newsweek and got to comparing the two.

Down to the punctuation, this book is merely a reprint. Word for word! The book includes a pretty lame "Epilogue" as well as a rather uninteresting interview with President-Elect Obama at the end, but other than these additions, the book is just a complete copy of the original article! Including the photographs!!

Of course I'm returning the book. Why pay $[...] when I have the original Newsweek issue for $[...]? Heck you can read the entire book for free online at Newsweek.com, still!

I find it incredibly dishonest of Newsweek to not alert purchasers of this book that it is just a reprint of the original piece.

One final nitpick... you'd think that by printing the book, they would have corrected some of the major factual errors that appeared in the original piece. For example, in the original version the writers wrote that Hillary Clinton's sniper fire exaggeration occurred in April, when it occurred in March. This error was not corrected in the hardback edition of the book I purchased.

So, gentle readers, please avoid this book and try to just find a backissue of that Newsweek. Or go online. But don't waste your money on this disappointing book.

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Same as the magazine article - agh!, January 7, 2009

By	Amy Kennedy - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this for $22.95 believing it was different than the lengthy Newsweek article done just after the election by Evan Thomas and others, still available at the magazine's website for free. It looks to be exactly the same. There is no mention in the book that it is merely a reprint. Very disappointed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Behind the Scenes, January 26, 2009

By	Publius (Utopia) - See all my reviews

Barack Obama's historic election in 2008 may mark the resurgence of a dormant liberalism philosophy that has been dormant since the breakdown of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. If this turns out to be true, the 2008 campaign will be studied, analyzed and written about for many years from now. "A Long Time Coming" is probably the first in a long and interminable line of books about the election. It is often said that journalism is the first draft of history and as such, this book provides the closest understanding we have of the inside players and the decisions that made the election of Obama possible. There is an old saying that "victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan." As such, the conventional wisdom was that almost every strategic decision that McCain and his inner circle made tended to be disastrous. But, if one takes a closer look at the numbers, and especially the battleground states of Colorado, Virginia, Ohio and Florida, the switching of a few thousand votes may have made a huge and ultimately monumental difference in the outcome. If those votes had been switched around, the narrative may have been how John McCain pulled off an historic upset on the scale of Truman in 1948. However, it didn't happen that way, so every mistake that McCain made, from the picking of Sarah Palin to the short lived suspension of his campaign in September is magnified ten thousand times over. Whereas , everything that Obama did was brilliant from focusing on the caucus states early on to using the internet to woo new voters and most especially donors. In the appendix to this book, Mr. Obama, in an interview even says that there was a lot of on the job training going on in 2007, and but for his triumphal speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa in late 2007, we may have just inaugurated the first Woman president, rather than the first African American one.
However, the point that Mr. Evans makes, and makes rather well, is that in politics, the simple things matter. Obama was probably the most effective candidate, in recent memory, at staying on message throughout his campaign, while McCain's campaign was reduced to a series of gimmicks that unfortunately stand at odds with the selfless patriot and hero that McCain was. This book was, for the most part, taken from the Newsweek cover story in the week after the election, and does not expand on it, except for a brief introduction by Newsweek editor Mr. Meachem and an interview with Mr. Obama conducted during the middle of the election. But in a year that saw the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression, the party that represented the status quo had a tough road, but certainly the infighting in Mr. McCain's campaign did not help, and may have made Obama's victory a sure thing. In fact, the author writes that McCain's inner circle knew it was over a month before the election. The real history of this election, is that if someone like a John Kerry had won the nomination, there is probably a very good chance that he could have won with the way the economy was going, but the fact of the matter is that we will never know. In the future, the ebbs and flows of the 2008 campaign will be memorialized in books, documentaries and probably movies, but read this book and prepare for the tumult ahead as the facts become more legend then anything grounded in reality.