Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama is an excellent read. Former President Obama is lucid in his vision of America- and it's the same one we all want. Obama writes earnestly of his life and about political issues of the time, 2008. I really only remember Obama's re-election campaign, since I was 9 years old his first time around. There are threads in Audacity of Hope which acknowledge the partisan breakdown of the 60s-80s and makes me even more grateful to have read Stayin Alive.
Obama's measured tone in framing his political disagreements really demonstrates what a different political world we are in today. Obama reviews his political beliefs on major issues of 2008: family, labor, war, and political division. It is almost funny to think now what the division must have been like in 2008 and to consider where we are today. "Perhaps more than any other time in our recent history, we need a new kind of politics, one that can excavate and build upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans," and, shortly thereafter, "That isn't to say that I know exactly how to do it," (p.9). And so it continues. That humility comes through so clearly in his writing.
Obama deftly recognizes that phrase we hear so commonly now- that we are so much more polarized than before- before, even if you disagreed, you could get a drink together after Legislative Session. While this is, as a matter of fact, true, Obama touches on the fact that the issues back then and the people fighting for them were not always fighting for their own livelihoods. And, so, compartmentalizing wasn't too difficult. He also acknowledges that asking for money from people who have a lot of it necessitates spending more time among wealth and less among the majority. But yet, he is unshakably grounded in his faith in America.
Obama exemplifies something I've always said: being a politician really means being an eternal optimist.
Obama's writing is as inspiring as his speaking, so here are a couple of quotes:
"Americans are willing to compete with the world. We work harder than the people of any other wealthy nation. We are willing to tolerate more economic instability and are willing to take more personal risks to get ahead. But we can only compete if our government makes the investments that give us a fighting chance- and if we know that our families have some net beneath which they cannot fall. That's a bargain with the American people worth making." (p.187).
"No one is exempt from the call to find common ground," (p.68).
"There is a constant danger, in the cacophony of voices, that a politician loses his moral bearings and finds himself entirely steered by the winds of public opinion," (p.65).
Kind of a Georgist quote about Hamilton: "Hamilton understood that only through liberation of capital from local landed interests could America tap into its most powerful resource- name the energy and enterprise of the American people," (p.151).
A quote from President Kennedy: "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich," (p.314).