Our Time Is Now by Stacey Abrams

Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America by Stacey Abrams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has my highest recommendation. Even with as much as I read about democracy and politics I still found this book to be highly educational and motivational. It should be required high school/college reading especially with our democracy in increasing danger. The two main topics are fair elections and the importance of a complete and accurate census. That sounds a bit dry, but Abrams makes the topics come alive with her passion and knowledge.

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“Voting is a constitutional right in the United States, a right that has been reiterated three separate times via constitutional amendment.”

“Voter suppression works its might by first tripping and causing to stumble the unwanted voter, then by convincing those who see the obstacle course to forfeit the race without even starting to run.”
― Stacey Abrams

The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang

The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future by Andrew Yang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm a supporter of Warren, but I thought there were a lot of important arguments and ideas in this book about the current state of our economy, and the direction it's taking. I have a hard time taking Yang seriously as a candidate because of his lack of government experience and his performance during the Democratic Debates, but this is probably the third-best book by a Democratic Candidate for the 2020 election. So far, I've read at least one book by each of the 10 candidates that qualified for the third debate (and some of the dropouts) except Beto. I guess that's next.

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The Senator Next Door by Amy Klobuchar

The Senator Next Door: A Memoir from the Heartland by Amy Klobuchar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Klobuchar is clearly a good person, but wow, I was deeply unimpressed by this book. Nearly 3/4th is just memoir, which speaks of the excessive self-importance shared by candidates like Hickenlooper.

Additionally, I don’t think Klobuchar is part of the modern Democratic Party. There are too many urgent issues in this era, many of them caused by the far right, and it’s my opinion that centrists such as Klobuchar or Biden properly belong in a third party. The Republicans won’t have them, and neither should Democrats.

She seems to lack large vision and is mired in accomplishing little fixes. It wasn’t even clear if she failed to cover her policy in this book or if she’s completely lacking policy. I know she’s “tough on crime” and that she thinks we can’t be isolationists. Other than that, I don’t know too much about her policies after one of the lengthiest candidate’s books. Well, maybe it just felt like the lengthiest.

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The Opposite of Woe by John Hickenlooper

The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics by John Hickenlooper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First of all, this book is too long, so right off the bat, you get the impression that Hickenlooper thinks too much of his importance. I read short books and super long books, but I can forgive a lot of writing gaffes if you manage not to waste my time. On the flip side, if your book is a tome, I expect you to provide Anna Karenina-levels of spiritual fulfillment. Don't get me wrong, I also thought Bill Clinton's My Life and Ron Chernow's Grant were too long at twice the length and twice the political importance of this.

Why is it so long? The first 60% of the book focuses on Hickenlooper's early foibles and every woman he ever dated. Some of this background is important so that we can see why he became the type of leader he became, but certainly, not most of it. In defense of this section though, Hickenlooper can be very very funny.

The remaining 40% is the important part, but by that time I'd lost a lot of interest and focus. Considering that Hickenlooper is running for President just 3 years after the publication of this book, there was a noticeable lack of overall policy. Rather, he recounted his process and decisions along the way. While I appreciate that his process is facts-based, as that seems to be lacking in governance these days (though especially in Republican governance), quite often, his fact-gathering was insufficiently comprehensive. Other times he emphasized public opinion over fact-gathering, making for somewhat inconsistent results. For example, I thought his explanation and support for fracking seemed to be lacking in any views inconsistent with the limited facts he'd gathered as an insider in the industry. Okay, he drank some fracking fluid that a government agency said was technically safe for drinking, congratulations. But just off the top of my head, here are some things he failed to investigate or mention: 1) how comprehensive are these government requirements when corporations and conservatives constantly lobby to loosen or remove envirnmental regulations? 2) safe for whom? testing on pregnant women and children is not allowed and at best are a guess. I didn't even take a single Tylenol when I was pregnant, do you honestly think pregnant women drinking fracking fluid is safe when it's not even tested? But this is just one example of his lack of rigorous thinking which stood out mainly because of his constant self-congratulation on his rigorous thinking. Don't get me wrong, he's still 100% better than Trump for the leader of the free world, but that appears to be true also of most people I know.

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Off the Sidelines by Kirsten Gillibrand

Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World by Kirsten Gillibrand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this because Gillibrand is one of the 2020 Presidential candidates. Unfortunately, this isn’t a policy book; it’s part memoir and part resume of her legislative pursuits on behalf of New York. That said, I think it’s difficult to be a woman/mother in my age-group and not be delighted by Gillibrand’s personality. She’s funny and very relatable and to the extent that she mentions her current policies, which is not very much, I’m in agreement with her positions.

On the other hand, she tried to address one of my central concerns about her, her House gun record, but I don’t think she did so persuasively enough.

She’s not my preferred candidate, and she’s not currently polling well. Nonetheless, if by some miracle she became the Democratic nominee, I’d be pleased to vote for her.

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Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders

Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In by Bernie Sanders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Part 1 of this book is a rehash of Sander's 2016 presidential run and Part 2 is his beliefs and policies on a number of issues. Part 1 is not so good, and the book overall is probably too long, but Part 2 makes the whole endeavor worthwhile for me.

I've been a big Warren fan for a long time, I really want a female president, I was so annoyed at Sanders in the 2016 election, and I was doubly annoyed when he announced his 2020 run. But, oh boy, do I love this entire policy section. He goes issue by issue, campaign finance reform, banking reform, health care, higher education, the environment, racism, immigration, the economy and government programs, and more, and for each issue, he calls it as he sees it, even when it makes Democrats look bad. And I've been watching C-Span since the 1990s, I know this is who Bernie Sanders really is and always has been. The rest of the left is just starting to catch up to him.

I haven't necessarily switched my allegiance to Sanders, rather just put him up there tied with Warren for now. Warren's policies and Sander's policies are not that dissimilar, so for me, it will really come down to how the early stages of the primaries go.

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Facts and Fears by James R. Clapper

Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence by James R. Clapper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Americans need to read this book. In his memoir, Clapper shares his lifetime of experience as an honorable servant of our country and our democracy. He gives readers a unique window into the American intelligence community, their capabilities, sacrifices, and limitations. The memoir covers in some detail: Assange, Snowden, North Korea, Russia, and the sadly still very fresh in our memories 2016 Election and Russian election interference.

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