Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Axelrod (director, Inst. of Politics at the Univ. of Chicago) has had a life-long love affair with politics, beginning in 1968 as a 13-year-old volunteer for the Robert Kennedy presidential campaign. Here he presents a lively insider's account of Chicago politics, which he covered as a city beat reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, significantly, his roles as senior media strategist for President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns and as senior advisor during Obama's first term. The book teems with entertaining stories about Obama and a host of politicians and officials with whom Axelrod worked during the 150 campaigns he has advised. At times, the retelling of minor campaigns drags owing to more detail than necessary. The most illuminating chapters cover the 2008 campaign when Obama overcame the Clinton juggernaut and a number of other challenges, some self-inflicted. Poignantly, the author describes his own professional and emotional investment in the Affordable Care Act passage because of his wife's cancer and his daughter's epilepsy. The book concludes with Obama's reelection and Axelrod's return to Chicago. VERDICT This is a refreshing autobiography of a major political player who remains energized by politics during a time when cynicism prevails. It is more accessible than Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices-a treat for political junkies and for all readers fascinated by politics in motion. [See Prepub Alert, 8/22/14.]-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Longtime political adviser Axelrod, late of the White House, tells most of what he's seen in the cloakroom. Barack Obama is intensely competitive, a fighter. He drinks a little and swears a lot, sometimes exultantly, and he's disappointed: he thought he could do business with John Boehner, but noand if you think racism has nothing to do with it, as Axelrod resignedly writes, "some folks simply refuse to accept the legitimacy of the first black president and are seriously discomforted by the growing diversity of our country." Though the comedians Key and Peele have hilariously imagined an angry black alter ego for the president, Axelrod assures us that Obama remains above the racial fray, always rational and calm, "welcome qualities after the bombast and bluster of the Bush-Cheney era." Partisan zingers are comparatively and surprisingly few for so renowned a street fighter. Instead, Axelrod concentrates on spinning yarns about how things get done in the day-to-day tumble of politics and, of course, on his former boss, whom he obviously admires while wishing, perhaps, that the gloves would come off a bit more often. The author writes that he was introduced to Obama in 1992 with the assurance, from a Democratic activist, that here "could be the first black president," but the actual mechanics of how that happened are of greater interest in the telling, with Axelrod tracing deep connections to the political enterprise of another Illinoisannot Lincoln but Paul Simon, the nerdy but powerful scholar who managed to get a lot done in his years in Washington. Axelrod's careful connection of the dots provides an illuminating study in how political power moves from generation to generation. The book-closing call to remake politics would sound like so much cheerleading in other hands, but Axelrod's connecting of Obama to JFK makes it work. Obama has been profiled many times but seldom with so practical an outlook. An excellent view of politics from the inside. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.