The Real McCain
May 27th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics, Book Reviews | 4 Comments »I finished The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter a few days ago and was quite surprised at the amount of negative facts an author can include about the presumptive Republican candidate in 150 pages. The book is pretty short and took me 10 days to finish it from beginning to end. I expected more of the same in terms of content; similar to what Suzanne Goldenberg wrote in Madam President, but I was pleasantly surprised. Cliff Schecter has done what most authors tend not to do, get right to the point from page two:
If it is not political calculation on McCain’s part to tell the evangelicals what they want to hear, then what is it?
When I read at night, I often have some sticky notes close by so that I can mark important passages in the book. Initially I started off marking about the first fifty pages before I realized that Mr.Schecter has managed to include every negative substantive fact about Senator McCain in this book. Senator McCain has denied the contents of the book because Mr. Schecter mentions using anonymous sources at several places in the book however in an interview with BuzzFlash he mentions Senator McCain’s reaction to the book:
He did, and he denied it. And I guess that’s the point I’m making is that he denied the charge [of assaulting Renzi], and that’s been proven. Because he said that I had anonymous sources and I was making it up. But now, of course, he’s had to admit that it did happen, and try to say, well, it happened, but it didn’t happen exactly the way I said. But that’s the newest line out of the McCain camp.
I enjoyed this book for the most part but chose to read it over an official autobiography of John McCain because as a liberal I don’t know how much republican rhetoric I can stand to read before I go to bed at night. I enjoyed the book because it was clearly well researched but it got quite boring towards the end because the endless negativity (not in a bad way). It is a definite must read for any liberals or independents who are debating on whether to vote for John McCain.
The overall conclusion I drew from this book based on the facts presented is that Senator McCain is the typical personification of a politician. He says what he needs to say to please the crowds and the people who support him. It is impossible to know what he truly stands for because of his changing nature but I believe this kind of politician cannot exist in the 21st century but we will have to wait to see whether the general election proves this statement. If I were talking a rating out of 10, I would give The Real McCain 6 out of 10 for being enlightening but far too negative for a book of only 150 pages.
