Download No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner AudioBook Free
He was named by The Atlantic Monthly "the most sought-after strategist in the Democratic party." He was targeted by National Review as the Democratic Party's "poet goon." From his unique perspective, Robert Shrum gives us an epic and personal story of the struggle for power in America during the past four decades. With wit and humor, rare candor, and an abundance of detail, Shrum vividly recounts the true personalities and real forces that shaped the results of the closest & most important elections in our time. We is there with him in the trunk rooms, on the planes, and in the motorcades with Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Shrum reveals the manipulations and limitations of old and new kinds of political persuasion, from the historic and sometimes controversial speeches he wrote to the negative ads he designed for national and statewide candidates, from prepping presidential nominees for critical debates to the deployment of the new political weapon, the web. He lifts the curtain on decisive moments. Did John Kerry and John Edwards actually have confidence in the Iraq war they voted for? That which was the true reason the Kerry campaign didn't respond faster to the Swift Boat attacks? Why didn't Al Gore let Bill Clinton campaign all-out in 2000? How did Clinton complete the first perilous week of the Lewinsky scandal? That is a provocative journey through recent history: George McGovern's antiwar campaign of 1972, the improbable rise of Jimmy Carter, Senate campaigns that made historic breakthroughs and shaped the presidential contests of the future, the gifts that made Bill Clinton a great politician-and the circumstances and calculations that kept him from being a great president. As strategist, adviser, and often friend to the leaders he enlisted with, Shrum shows them as they are, with the strengths and human weaknesses-as well as his own. Assailed as a populist who pushed the Democratic Party (in a phrase he coined) "to are a symbol of the people, not the powerful," Shrum argues that unlike Republicans from Reagan on, Democrats flunk, politically or in office, when they trim their convictions and walk away from fundamental issues-like universal coverage of health. That is one of the very most fascinating books ever written about the victories and defeats, the causes and candidates, the "flawed heroes" that drive the high drama of American politics.
