What It Takes

For my money, this book is the best work of journalism—certainly of political journalism—of its time, meaning the last half-century.

Six politicians, including two presidents—the first George Bush, and Joe Biden—emerge not as mere ambitious strivers but as tragic heroes, each as much the victim as the master of America's predatory political culture. I felt I knew each of them and what they'd been through as intimately as if I'd been their brother.

Why would anybody in their right mind put themselves through the agonies of a presidential campaign? And what does it take to win? Cramer’s account of the crowded 1988 campaign is less about strategy and tactics than the personality and character of the candidates (including Joe Biden, Bob Dole, and George H. W. Bush). Ego and ambition, courage and cowardice are on display here, but so too is an almost across-the-board sense of honor and duty that’s in rare supply today.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer wrote what IMO is the best book ever written chronicling a run for president from the primaries to the general election. The author followed the 1988 election and provides deep and detailed revelations about the six candidates and their campaigns. I was pleasantly surprised how good this book was.

I won’t kid you: I wish this book were about 200 pages shorter. But then it would not feel as bone-deep exhausting—and exhaustive—as an actual presidential campaign. And before one wields political power in America, there has to be a campaign. No one has taken us inside the psychological demands and personal toll of campaigning at the highest level like Cramer. Indeed, no journalist conceived that such an epic could be written until Cramer wrote it. And since his deep dive into the 1988 campaign, candidates have sworn never to be so exposed. Thus, this book is a revelation unlikely… show more.