Short Summary of The Audacity of Hope

By: Admin

Barack Obama - The audacity of Hope

Mr. Obama’s new book, “The Audacity of Hope” - the phrase comes from his 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address, which made him the party’s rising young hope - is much more of a political document. Portions of the volume read like outtakes from a stump speech, and the bulk of it is devoted to laying out Mr. Obama’s policy positions on a host of issues, from education to health care to the war in Iraq.

But while Mr. Obama occasionally slips into the flabby platitudes favored by politicians, enough of the narrative voice in this volume is recognizably similar to the one in “Dreams From My Father,” an elastic, personable voice that is capable of accommodating everything from dense discussions of foreign policy to streetwise reminiscences, incisive comments on constitutional law to New-Agey personal asides.

In his 2004 keynote address Mr. Obama spoke of the common ground Americans share: “There is not a Black America and White America and Latino America and Asian America - there’s the United States of America.” Despite the red state-blue state divide, despite racial, religious and economic divisions, Mr. Obama writes, “we are becoming more, not less, alike” beneath the surface: “Most Republican strongholds are 40 percent Democrat, and vice versa. The political labels of liberal and conservative rarely track people’s personal attributes.”

In reaction to religious overreach, we equate tolerance with secularism and forfeit the moral language that would help infuse our policies with a larger meaning. We lose elections and hope for the courts to foil Republican plans. We lose the courts and wait for a White House scandal.”

Who is the audience for this book? This book got excerpted in Time magazine, for example, and Obama got a big cover spread, with a presidential headline. The Time excerpts were pleasant to read — a little uplift for a few pages.

This book contains nothing but numerous uplifting anecdotes of building consensus based on understanding one’s opponents’ point of view, of bipartisanship based on mutual respect. Reading an excerpt or two fills one with an uplifting feeling.

Having the book on coffeetables across America, despite being unread, means Barack’s smiling face is in people’s living rooms and he’s in people’s conversations. Having uplifting anecdotes excerpted in Time and OnTheIssues means people will read about their favorite topic, be uplifted, and repeat the anecdote to their fellow voters. This book is written instead for the campaign trail.

I do have a fantasy about how Obama came up with the title (because people like Obama hire people like me to come up with titles like “The Audacity of Hope“). Obama’s title hence attempts to elicit a subconscious feeling that “Obama has the audacity of Dean, but with Clinton’s chances of success.”