Inspiring reading for aspiring politicians or anyone seeking substantive change.
The youngest man to ever occupy a seat in the Connecticut state legislature tells the story of his unlikely run for office and the lessons learned as a freshman senator.
When all his fellow college juniors were thinking about their first jobs or graduate school, Haskell decided to run for the Connecticut General Assembly. Though he didn’t boast “the typical résumé of a candidate for state Senate—no law or business degree, no decades of service on a local board or commission, no spouse and kids to put on a glossy mailer,” he did have an Obama-inspired belief in the power of positive change and a profound distrust of the Trump administration. His underdog status against a far more entrenched political insider fueled his determination to not only win, but also break the Democrat-Republican tie in the state senate and end political gridlock. Coffee-shop conversations with local politicos that felt like “job interviews” led to discussions with other plugged-in political figures, who regarded Haskell with extreme skepticism. Undaunted, he found the beginnings of support in a state representative who began schooling him on major issues affecting Connecticut. A grassroots campaign effort followed along with the eventual support of seasoned political consultants who helped Haskell win over older voters. Seeking to stay “above the fray” and ignore his opponent’s attacks, Haskell won the 2018 state senate race. He then began his yearlong political education in fighting for the policies about which he was passionate, including free college and gun control, while learning from his mistakes (dozing off during a congressional session). Refreshingly candid and optimistic, this account offers much-needed hope to all Americans and especially to the politically underrepresented younger generations seeking change in a world increasingly hostile to their pursuits of health, wealth, and happiness.
Inspiring reading for aspiring politicians or anyone seeking substantive change.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982164-01-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
Welcome reading for anyone concerned with real rigged elections.
Tired of the lies about the 2020 election? Buckle up: Trump is just warming up, and his allies may be getting craftier.
“This is not a book about January 6, 2021. It is a book about January 6, 2025,” write legal scholars Lessig and Seligman. We are lucky, Lessig suggests, that John Eastman and his fellow plotters “picked the dumbest possible strategy for pursuing what we feared they were trying to accomplish”: namely, trying to convince Mike Pence that he had the constitutional authority to refuse to certify the results by which Joe Biden won the presidency. One might argue that the second dumbest strategy was to send an army of fascist goons to the Capitol to try to enforce Eastman’s argument. However, Lessig and Seligman argue, there are holes in the Constitution wide enough to drive a burning dumpster through, and they might allow an interested party to falsely claim victory in a closely contested race and win the election. The authors presume that any such gaming-the-system effort will come from MAGA Republicans, though they add that a Democrat could easily use the same tactics. Readers may need a law degree to follow some of the arguments, but others are quite accessible. One argument that Lessig has been mounting for some time, for instance, is that the winner-take-all method employed by most states for electoral votes needs to be replaced with an apportionment system so that the Electoral College count will align with the popular vote. On that score, the authors warn, the prospect of rogue electors—or more, rogue governors who control those electors—is very real, and numerous other threats could enable someone smarter than the last bunch to mount “a cataclysmic attack on our democracy.”
Welcome reading for anyone concerned with real rigged elections.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780300270792
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
