Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope: A Review

I just finished reading The Audacity of Hope, and I have decided I don't want to discuss so much the content of the book as what it reveals about its author. Senator Obama divides his book into not so much chapters as topics, each about one of the broad institutions or core ideas in US Society or the world. These include political parties (Republicans and Democrats), values, the Constitution of the US (which, by the way, he is unusually conversant in, even for a politician), opportunity, faith, race, international relations (diplomacy and war), and family.

In each section, he tells a deeply personal story of how he came to certain understandings about the topic at hand. While he does discuss his specific views on the various topics, most of which are moderate in tone but progressive in reach, his focus is on process, rather than end product. Actually, this is what is most attractive about both the book and the man. His thought process is transparent, clear, and based in a very centered sense of self. This is not a man who will be unduly swayed by advisers, nor is he a man who, after making a mistake, will compound that mistake by refusing to admit it.

As I read through the book, I found myself liking the man, and identifying with him, more and more. He has a sense of humility unusual in a politician, and he seems to understand that even as talented as he is, his political success has depended on more than a dollop of luck. He also seems to "get" that his choice to go into politics at a time when he and Michelle had two pre-school aged daughters made life incredibly difficult for her, though he admits that much of this understanding is in retrospect. He's not a perfect feminist. He also doesn't adhere closely to the civil rights tenets prevalent in the African American community. He does, however, understand that both women and African Americans are people, not abstract concepts, with real goals and wants and needs.

I started this silly season deeply in the Edwards camp, and for good reason. Edwards is by far the most progressive of the Democratic candidates, and thus his goals most closely resemble my own. After Edwards dropped out, I spent a lot of time doing research on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I read every page on both their sites. I saw who they were close to and who they weren't close to. I analyzed their positions on all the issues important to me. But the difference in the end, for me, boiled down to personality. Barack Obama's calm, his imperturbability, his masterful use of wry humor to deflect the silliest and sometimes potentially most damaging of the various (often false) claims made by his opponents, and above all, his deep sense of who he is, convinced me that this is a man worth voting for.



While the overt theme of this book is "what America needs to do to get its 'American Dream' back", the underlying theme is "this is the leadership style Barack Obama uses (as Senator) and would use (as President) to help America retrieve its dream".