Yes, Obama can!

There are books on him and then there are books on him. But Richard Wolffe’s book, says Kishore Singh, is on how Barack Obama became the President of the USA.

He was the Renegade who came in from the cold, a man of hope in embittered, twisted America whose distilled essence was a mystery to them. The Democrats knew the 2009 presidency was going to be a Clinton win, Hillary having launched her White House ambitions early on, but suddenly there was more than just issues of security and healthcare that energised the nation — there was, for tired, weathered down America, talk of change.

Richard Wolffe, senior Newsweek correspondent and formerly of the Financial Times, thought he might write a book on Barack Obama because “his story was still largely unknown, even though he had written a bestselling memoir”. This was soon after the start of Obama’s announcement that he would run for president. As in the case of

Sonia Gandhi who had opposed Rajiv Gandhi’s prime ministerial ambitions, Barack Obama needed Michelle’s approval. “She hated the failed race for Congress in 2000, and their marriage was strained by the time their younger daughter, Sasha, was born a year later. There was little conversation and even less romance. She was angry at his selfishness and careerism; he thought she was cold and ungrateful.”

She had admired his commitment for change, but now she needed to be part of his campaign. ‘“What would his schedule look like’” she began, as she peppered them with questions. How often would he be home? What time would he have available for the girls and her? Would there be any flexibility? Could he take weekends off?” Even to a novice, the answers should have been apparent: “No, no, no, no, no.” When finally Obama did decide to run, he suggested Wolffe might want to write instead on the campaign. But it would only be two months later that the author conceded that he might be right. “There wasn’t just a book in this election;” Wolffe writes, “there was a vital story that could only be told by someone who was there to witness it firsthand.”

Wolffe’s The Making of Barack Obama comes from that 21-month campaign in which he travelled with “the candidate” right up to his win, charting the team’s strategies, his speeches, his mistakes, his vulnerabilities and his strengths and his amazing belief in America’s right to change. “You know, I actually believe my bullshit,” he told Wolffe. “I don’t just want change for the sake of it. I want it for better schools for the kids on the streets. I want it for health care.”

That was after he’d won the Iowa caucus: “It’s the holy grail of politics,” David Plouffe, part of his team, had said, “It rarely happens.” But the euphoria of that “inevitable” moment gave way immediately after to humiliating defeat at New Hampshire, which Obama thought he had in his pocket. He might have lost New Hampshire, but he took away from it his slogan, “Yes we can”.

It was 21 months that shaped a new destiny for America, and 21 months that shaped a new destiny for Barack Obama. For all of that period, Wolffe was Obama’s shadow, watching him come alive before the organisers who shape much of America’s street politics, greet his voters, practice his speeches, pitch his family’s history and speak of an America of possibilities. His tirelessness, his ability to think big, to take in his stride his losses and his wins, his desire to shield his family from the media glare, particularly when he turned the heat on his rivals which “elitist caricature was personally offensive to Michelle”, his “pseudo-presidential tone” in economic debates against McCain, right up to the time “for the president to remake the world”, this is an incredible account of a campaign for change not just in America but around the world. Only another work in progress, on the making of the president, could better this admittedly subjective, but hardly less illuminating for that, effort.

The making of barack obama
Author: Richard Wolffe
Publisher: Virgin Books
pages: 356
Price: £13.99