Book #36: “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama

 

The Audacity of Hope

Barack Obama

 Released: November 6th, 2007

My 6th book for 2024 was Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope”.  Similar to Trump’s book, I went into this knowing it would be controversial to some people. 

I grew up and have seen the world more on the right side of the political spectrum.  Reading this book 10-15 years ago would have never been a thing for me.  I would probably laugh or mock it simply for featuring a liberal politician.  

In the years since his presidency, I have found a greater respect for Obama.  He did not come off like a Ted Kennedy, or an Elizabeth Warren.  He feels more human than an Al Gore or a John Kerry.  He seemed fair, articulate, well versed in various subjects, and calculated to a degree.  

I never voted for him, but I have a greater respect for him.  This book outlines his ideals and visions for America.  I found it to be a compelling read, and interestingly, he’s actually rather moderate in his way of thinking.  Never once while reading did I feel he came across as forcing an ideological concept towards the reader.  He would share his personal views and thoughts, but more in a way to share understanding with the reader of how and why he feels that way.

His callbacks to FDR, JFK, and Reagan are quite perceptive, and you even see how he finds a greater appreciation even for those whom he may disagree with politically.  It mirrors my thoughts towards the man.

As I stated with previous Presidential books covered, this is presented in objective style with Obama’s point of view establishing the information.  This is not meant to persuade to one ideology or another, but more for the information extracted from this book.

Here is what I learned:

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• Book is dedicated to his maternal grandmother Tutu and his mother - The women who raised him.
• Barack Obama was 35 when he first ran for public office.
• He sought to represent the South Side neighborhood of Chicago.
• The South Side is a run down area with a cynicism nourished by a generation of broken promises.
• Obama was a teacher at the Chicago Law School
• Each successive year that you live makes you more intimately acquainted with your flaws.
• Obama has chronic restlessness.  An inability to appreciate, no matter how well things are going, blessings that were right there in front of him.
• Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father’s expectations or make up for their father’s mistakes.
• Obama ran for state senator in 2000, and lost badly.
• It took him a year and a half to get over the loss.
• “I began to harbor doubts about the path I had chosen; I began feeling the way I imagine an actor or athlete must feel when, after years of commitment to a particular dream, after years of waiting tables between auditions or scratching out hits in the minor leagues, he realizes that he's gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and he now faces the choice of accepting this fact like a grownup and moving on to more sensible pursuits, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic.”
• “Denial, anger, bargaining, despair—I'm not sure I went through all the stages prescribed by the experts. At some point, though, I arrived at acceptance—of my limits, and, in a way, my mortality. I refocused on my work in the state senate and took satisfaction from the reforms and initiatives that my position afforded. I spent more time at home, and watched my daughters grow, and properly cherished my wife, and thought about my long-term financial obligations. I exercised, and read novels, and came to appreciate how the earth rotated around the sun and the seasons came and went without any particular exertions on my part.”
• Peter Fitzgerald had spent $19 million of his own personal wealth to unseat Carol Mosley Braun. 
• Braun was once an ambassador to New Zealand.
• Obama struggled campaigning.  He would drive all over Illinois sometimes to find 2 people at a kitchen table, or to a church service where the pastor would forget to acknowledge him.
• He even spoke to unions just to hear they had decided to endorse someone else.
• Obama expected larger insights from his traveling, but found that average Americans wants and needs were quite modest.
• “Most of them thought that anybody willing to work should be able to find a job that paid a living wage. They figured that people shouldn't have to file for bankruptcy because they got sick. They believed that every child should have a genuinely good education— that it shouldn't just be a bunch of talk—and that those same children should be able to go to college even if their parents weren't rich.  They wanted to be safe, from criminals and from terrorists; they wanted clean air, clean water, and time with their kids. And when they got old, they wanted to be able to retire with some dignity and respect.”
• “I told them that they were right: government couldn't solve all their problems. But with a slight change in priorities we could make sure every child had a decent shot at life and meet the challenges we faced as a nation.”
• Obama’s encounters confirmed the fundamental decency of the American people.
• They reminded him that at the core of the American experience are a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences.
• “You don't need a poll to know that the vast majority of Americans—Republican, Democrat, and independent—are weary of the dead zone that politics has become, in which narrow interests vie for advantage and ideological minorities seek to impose their own versions of absolute truth. Whether we're from red states or blue states, we feel in our gut the lack of honesty, rigor, and common sense in our policy debates, and dislike what appears to be a continuous menu of false or cramped choices.”
• “We may be the first generation in a very long time that leaves behind a weaker and more fractured America than the one we inherited.”
• Obama feels anger that polices continue to favor the wealthy and powerful over the average American.
• He believes in free speech whether politically correct or politically incorrect.
• He is suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs—including his own—on nonbelievers.
• He feels the Democratic Party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times.
• He believes in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship.
• Obama wishes the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.
• He believes America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the world.
• He feels that what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.
• Most days, Obama used to enter the Capitol through the basement.
• His office was in the Hart Building.
• The Senate has 100 mahogany desks that sit in 4 horseshoe-shaped rows.
• Some of the desks date back to 1819.
• The Speaker often addresses a near-empty chamber.
• “In the world’s greatest deliberative body, no one is listening.”
• Obama was sworn in as a member of the 109th Congress on January 4th, 2005.
• He has family in Illinois, Hawaii, London, and Kenya.
• He feels that an industry of insult has emerged to dominate cable television, talk radio, and the New York Times best-seller list.
• He understands politics are a full-contact sport.  People get blindsided.
• Occasionally he would partner up with his more conservative colleagues to work on a piece of legislation over a poker game or beer.
• He found that they had more in common than either cared to admit.
• Obama’s first vote as Senator was to install George W. Bush for a second term as President.
• After a presidential election, the Congress voted to install a candidate as President.  Most people accept the results and vote “yes”.
• When people mention living in the worst of times, he reminds them of the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, and a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse.
• Obama once asked an old Washington hand who had served in and around the Capitol for close to 50 years what was the difference between then and now.  He said “Generational” without hesitation. 
• "Back then, almost everybody with any power in Washington had served in World War II. We might've fought like cats and dogs on issues. A lot of us came from different backgrounds, different neighborhoods, different political philosophies. But with the war, we all had something in common. That shared experience developed a certain trust and respect. It helped to work through our differences and get things done."
• Richard Nixon initiated the first Affirmative Action Programs, and signed the creation of both EPA and OSHA into law.
• Obama’s mother left the mainland USA in 1960.
• Obama goes into great detail about just how sharply the political divide is in America.  He points to different things such as the counterculture of the 1960’s evolving into consumerism, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll of the 80’s.
• He talks about how Reagan painted a very appealing message to the nation, and while he disagreed with him, he couldn’t help but see how the flaws of liberal government help Reagan to build a stronger conservative government.
• He feels that after Reagan, political identity became far sharper on ideology.  You are either for us, or against us.  And if you’re not in agreement with a single issue, you’re automatically one of them.
• He feels that the core of today’s GOP is absolutism.  The absolutism of a free market, an ideology of no taxes, no regulation, no safety net—no government beyond what’s required to protect private property and provide for the national defense.
• He feels the Democratic Party has become one of reaction.
• Obama found President Bush (W.) to be a likable man.  He was shrewd, disciplined, but with a straightforward manner.
• When they first met, Bush told Obama he had a very bright future ahead, but cautioned him about the cutthroat nature of political Washington.  They got along so well Obama uncharacteristically put his arm over the President’s shoulders. 
• He speaks about being a fierce critic of the Bush administration and his policies.  Despite this, he considers Bush to be a good man, and trusts that he and his administration are doing what they feel is best for the country in good faith.
• No matter how wrongheaded their idea may be, he stills finds it possible in talking to these people to understand their motives and recognize in them values he shares.
• Most people who serve in Washington have been trained as either lawyers or political operatives—professionals that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems.
• Where Chicago feels more like New York or Los Angeles, Southern Illinois is more like Little Rock or Louisville.
• When he first traveled Southern Illinois, he saw in the faces of the many different people he met the traces of his own family.  Openness, matter-of-factness, kindness.
• “Not so far beneath the surface, I think, we are becoming more, not less, alike.”
• “Spend time actually talking to Americans, and you discover that most evangelicals are more tolerant than the media would have us believe, most secularists more spiritual. Most rich people want the poor to succeed, and most of the poor are both more self-critical and hold higher aspirations than the popular culture allows. Most Republican strongholds are 40 percent Democrat, and vice versa. The political labels of liberal and conservative rarely track people's personal attributes.”
• When he first took Michelle to Kenya, she came back to the states not realizing how “American” she was.
• In Kenya, it’s difficult to find a job or start a business without paying bribes.  Activists are jailed for government opposition.  Distant cousins ask for favors.  Family members show up unannounced.
• “More often, though, finding the right balance between our competing values is difficult.  Tensions arise not because we have steered a wrong course, but simply because we live in a complex and contradictory world.”
• “…even the wisest president and most prudent Congress would struggle to balance the critical demands of our collective security against the equally compelling need to uphold civil liberties.”
• “Conservatives, for instance, tend to bristle when it comes to government interference in the marketplace or their right to bear arms. Yet many of these same conservatives show little to no concern when it comes to government wiretapping without a warrant or government attempts to control people's sexual practices. Conversely, it's easy to get most liberals riled up about government encroachments on freedom of the press or a woman's reproductive freedoms. But if you have a conversation with these same liberals about the potential costs of regulation to a small-business owner, you will often draw a blank stare.”
• Obama asserts that we need more empathy in our daily lives.  We may disagree with others, but have we taken the time to truly see things through their eyes?
• Most senators describe their first year on Capitol Hill as, “It’s like drinking from a fire hose.”
• Obama lived alone when he first got into politics.  He and Michelle opted to keep the family in Chicago.  He would spend 3 nights a week in Washington.
• He forgot to buy a shower curtain his first night, and had to shower against the wall to keep the water from spilling out.
• He thought he would be more excited at a return to bachelor life.  Take-out menus, midnight workouts, watching sports and enjoying a beer.  But more and more he just wanted to call home to hear his daughters, ask them about their day, check in on Michelle.
• Senator Robert Byrd was highly revered in the Senate.
• He always carried a pocket-sized book of the U.S. Constitution everywhere he went.
• The filibuster is not in the Constitution.  It is a Senate rule dating back to the first Congress.
• A “nuclear option” allows the Senate to override a standing rule by simple majority as opposed to the 2/3’s needed to kill a filibuster.
• Obama loved his law school classroom.
• He felt his students often felt they know the Constitution without having really read it.
• He goes into length about how no matter which side of the spectrum we fall, we still support a constitution that was written over 200 years ago.
• Conservatives tend to view the constitution in a literal sense.
• Liberals see it more as a guideline in an ever-changing world.
• One of his favorite things as Senator were conducting town hall meetings.
• House Reps tend to reelect at a 96% rate.
• During the year and a half of his primary campaign, he only took 7 days off.
• He lost his primary by 31 points.
• “I was reminded of what my veteran colleagues already knew-that every statement I made would be subject to scrutiny, dissected by every manner of pundit, interpreted in ways over which I had no control, and combed through for a potential error, misstatement, omission, or contradiction that might be filed away by the opposition party and appear in an unpleasant TV ad somewhere down the road.”
• Obama speaks about how difficult the media has become.  He mentions how facts have given way to convenience.
• As he casts his vote, he often thinks about something JFK once wrote.
• “Few, if any, face the same dread finality of decision that confronts a Senator facing an important call of the roll. He may want more time for his decision —he may believe there is something to be said for both sides—he may feel that a slight amendment could remove all difficulties-but when that roll is called he cannot hide, he cannot equivocate, he cannot delay—and he senses that his constituency, like the Raven in Poe's poem, is perched there on his Senate desk, croaking "Nevermore" as he casts the vote that stakes his political future.”
• “…there is a certain liberation that comes from realizing that no matter what you do, someone will be angry at you…”
• U.S. Senators fly a lot.
• Under Senate rules, a Senator or candidate may travel on someone else’s private jet and just pay the equivalent of a first-class airfare.
• “It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it.”
• He feels there are merits on both sides for capitalism and government programs to coincide.  He feels we need to achieve greater balance.
• Obama feels education should be a focal point for better American growth.
• He feels a good seasoned and experienced teacher should make $100,000 at the peak of their career.
• Test scores should not determine a bad teacher.  It should be a combination of that, and how they teach in their schools.
• Some kids fail because the teacher is not a good teacher.
• He feels strongly about climate change, and believes we should utilize education to build new economic opportunities that solve global problems while taking care of citizens.
• Obama believes in the “Earned Income Tax Credit” championed by President Reagan.  This provides low-wage workers supplemental income through the tax code.  
• Obama once visited Warren Buffett.  He expressed concerns to the Senator that his taxes were not high enough and that people below him paid more.  Obama asked him if fellow billionaires felt the same, and he laugh and said no.
• "They have this idea that it's their money' and they deserve to keep every penny of it.
• What they don't factor in is all the public investment that let us live the way we do. Take me as an example. I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I'd been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can't run very fast. I'm not particularly strong. I'd probably end up as some wild animal's dinner.
• “I’ll tell you, not very many.  They have this idea that it's their money and they deserve to keep every penny of it.  What they don't factor in is all the public investment that lets us live the way we do. Take me as an example. I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I'd been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can't run very fast. I'm not particularly strong. Id probably end up as some wild animal's dinner.  I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing—and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that." - Warren Buffett.
• He felt the national debt was brought into greater balance under President Clinton, and that Bush’s tax cuts harmed it.
• “And perhaps I possess a certain Midwestern sensibility that I inherited from my mother and her parents, a sensibility that Warren Buffett seems to share: that at a certain point one has enough, that you can derive as much pleasure from a Picasso hanging in a museum as from one that's hanging in your den, that you can get an awfully good meal in a restaurant for less than twenty dollars, and that once your drapes cost more than the average American's yearly salary, then you can afford to pay a bit more in taxes.”
• After he won the nomination for the U.S. Senate, he received a letter from a doctors at the University of Chicago.  They were conservative in nature, religious, but felt a sense of fair-minded politics in Obama’s idea’s.  Their own issue was with the fiery words on his website regarding abortion.
• “Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded. You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others... I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”
• When Obama checked his website, they were words written by his staff to fire up his base.  He felt a pang of regret, not because he felt differently on the issue, but because he knew there are some who simply oppose it due to personal beliefs and experiences.  To them, he was writing them off without understanding their side, and assuming them to be abhorrent religious types.
• The letter affected Obama.  He circulated it around his office and had the language changed to a firm but simpler terms that were less abrasive.
• Obama agrees with conservatives on the belief that the cooling of religious enthusiasm among Americans has always been exaggerated.
• Southern Christians felt that an ever-changing culture and society was a direct attack on their church’s teachings about marriage, sexuality, and proper roles of men and women.
• Jimmy Carter was the first President to introduce the language of evangelical Christianity into modern national politics.  Something typically the Republican Party has pushed in support for.
• Obama feels the sentiment people use to attain religion is going about their daily lives and seeking a greater purpose.  A hope that they are not destined to travel down a long highway towards nothingness.
• “Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds— dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets— and coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness are not enough. They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives, something that will relieve a chronic loneliness or lift them above the exhausting, relentless toll of daily life. They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them-that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway toward nothingness.”
• Obama was not raised in a religious household.
• He has copies of the Bible, Quran, Bhagavad Gita as well as books on Greek, Norse, and African mythology in his personal library at home.
• Obama was baptized at the Trinity United Church of Christ.
• Alan Keyes was someone who always managed to get under Obama’s skin.
• He was a natural talker, and could “deliver a grammatically flawless disquisition on virtually any topic - at the drop of a hat.” 
• He was very abrasive and would use brutal attacks to take down his opponents.
• Obama’s reaction to religious attacks was that he was running for Senator of Illinois, not Minister of Illinois.  He refused to impose his religious views on another.
• “Liberalism teaches us to be tolerant of other people's religious beliefs, so long as those beliefs don't cause anyone harm or impinge on another's right to believe differently.”
• “Some on the left (although not those in public office) go further, dismissing religion in the public square as inherently irrational, intolerant, and therefore dangerous — and noting that, with its emphasis on personal salvation and the policing of private morality, religious talk has given conservatives cover to ignore questions of public morality, like poverty or corporate malfeasance.”
• “To say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public-policy debates is a practical absurdity; our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christianity tradition.”
• Obama feels that a pluralistic government needs to create laws that translate their concerns into a universal sense of value than simply religious specific.
• “If I am opposed to abortion for religious reasons and seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or invoke God's will and expect that argument to carry the day. If I want others to listen to me, then I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
• Over 4,000 mourners came to Rosa Park’s funeral.
• Obama covers the topic of race and points of some statistics that are generally disregarded.
• WVON was the first radio station to mention his campaign on Chicago airwaves.
• N’Digo was the first magazine to feature him on the cover.
• He had some powerful friends in the black community who help support him during his campaign.
• In 2006, the average black household made 75% what a what household had.  Latinos made 71%.
• The average black household has the TV on 11 hours a day.
• Obama feels that the two aspects of race relations that require specific attention are the deteriorating condition of the inner-city poor for the African American community, and undocumented workers/Immigration for Latinos.
• One of his favorite restaurants is MacArthurs.  It is run by a man named “Mac” Alexander.
• Obama goes into detail explaining how inner city life has been affected by outer circumstances.  When black Americans came north, they were forced into slums and ghettos.  Jobs are hard to find, so they turn to the drug trade.  Women aren’t educated on child-bearing, so kids grow up malnourished, and with no sense of discipline.
• Mac has 95% former convicted felons on his staff.  He believes in giving people a second chance.  He holds them accountable to that.  He understands some are not used to running a schedule, or working a standard job. He used this to challenge them to become better.
• Blacks share similar sentiments to whites over illegal immigration.
• Spanish-language Univision boasted the highest rates newscast in Chicago.
• Obama voted against a bill that would have granted legal status to 30 deported Mexican nationals. After he did, activists came after him denouncing him for hating immigrant families and children. He then said this:
• Obama feels American citizenship is a privilege not a right.
• "When I heard what had happened, I was both angry and frustrated. I wanted to call the group and explain that American citizenship is a privilege and not a right; that without meaningful borders and respect for the law, the very things that brought them to America, the opportunities and protections afforded those who live in this country, would surely erode; and that anyway, I didn't put up with people abusing my staff-especially one who was championing their cause."
• There are more than 742 languages spoken in Indonesia.
• It is the world’s largest Muslim nation.
• Obama and his mother moved to Indonesia in 1967, when he was 6 years old.
• He moved to Hawaii to live with his grandparents in 1971.
• He has fond memories of childhood in Indonesia, but fears the modern world has changed it far too much.
• Obama speaks of how politics are not as easily definable as “us vs them”
• As much as he did not care for Reagan’s politics, he finds a certain respect for his efforts in several areas.
• “Pride in our country, respect for our armed services, a healthy appreciation for the dangers beyond our bor-ders, an insistence that there was no easy equivalence between East and West—in all this I had no quarrel with Reagan. And when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote.”
• After 9/11, he believed Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction, but felt the threat was not as imminent.
• He was asked to speak at an anti-war rally.  He made it clear that he supported the Bush Administration’s pledge to hunt down those responsible for slaughtering the innocent, and would willingly take up arms himself to prevent such a thing from happening again.
• “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.”
• During a visit to Baghdad, Iraq, he made a visit to the “Green Zone” - a ten-mile wide area of Central Baghdad that had gone from the heart of Saddam Hussein’s government to a U.S.-controlled compound.  
• He was impressed to see that the operation was more than just the bombings and killings portrayed in the media.
• The troops had built schools, protected electrical facilities, lead newly trained Iraqi soldiers on patrol, and maintained supply lines to far-flung regions of the country.
• He also visited the marine base Fallujah in the Anbar Province, in Western Iraq.  He found that similar to Chicago, it was economy, not politics, that drove the insurgents.
• You could pay some kid $2-3 to plant a bomb.  They would keep coming back to make more money.
• Obama muses about the security of the modern world and the role the U.S. military plays in a post-9/11 world.
• The United States won the Cold War not simply because it outgunned the Soviet Union but because American values held sway in the court of international public opinion, which included those who lived within communist regimes.
• During a visit to Ukraine, he saw a poster that was a relic from the Afghan war.  It had instructions on how to hide explosives in toys for unsuspecting children to bring home.
• He found this to be a testament to the madness of men.  A record of how empires destroy themselves.
• “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” - JFK, Inaugural Address, 1961.
• In 1941, FDR said he looked forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
• Roughly 3 Billion people around the world live on less than $2 per day (by 2006 standards).
• Despite more visibility, Senators are still human.  One time, Barack called Michelle from his D.C. office after a hearing, to speak about the promising outlook o. The legislation.  She cut him off and I formed him they have ants and he needed to buy ant traps on his way home from work.  He wondered if Ted Kennedy or John McCain ever had to pick up ant traps on their way home from work.
• Obama says that despairing showing strong leadership skills, Michelle has said she would never go into politics.  She doesn’t have the patience for it, and he concurs.
• Michelle Obama grew up on the South Side of Chicago.
• She was Barack’s advisor at a law firm in Chicago for a summer associate job.
• The Robinson’s (Michelle’s family) overcame their father’s MS diagnosis at age 30 as his condition slowly deteriorated.
• 6 months after Barack and Michelle met, her father passed away suddenly after complications following a kidney operation.
• Barack talks about marriage and rape glide with Michelle as well as the birth of his daughters.
• He talks about the struggles families have in the modern world.
• Obama had only attended 2 birthday parties as a child.
• He goes on about his personal life, juggling professional duties with parenthood, and marriage.  It’s difficult, and his life provides better structure than a lot of the people he represents.  At the end of the day, he is grateful for a good life.
• Obama recalls a conversation he had with an older gentlemen that he worked with.  He mentioned obtaining his law degree.  The man offered this advice that stuck with the young Barack.
• "The one thing I've discovered as I get older is that you have to do what is satisfying to you. In fact that's one of the advantages of old age, I suppose, that you've finally learned what matters to you. It's hard to know that at twenty-six. And the problem is that nobody else can answer that question for you. You can only figure it out on your own."

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Overall, a very good read.  Obama is very different than the person I have seen him as over the course of my life.  I find a greater appreciation for the man, and despite the book being decades old, and lots of change in who he became and how his legacy will more permanently be known, the younger Senator Obama shares great insight and wisdom for a greater vision of our country.  I now understand his appeal to the greater masses.

Highly recommended.

On to Book #37: “Alien” by Alan Dean Foster.