One-car Caravan by Walter Shapiro

[carolinayellowdog]

Hey,

I'm just finishing this entertaining and informative account of the Dean, Edwards, Kerry, Gephardt, Graham, and Lieberman campaigns by a political columnist for USA Today. The author spent a lot of one-on-one time with all of the candidates. Surprisingly, it left me feeling more sympathy and respect for *all* of them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it raised my level of support for Dean from planning to vote for him in the primary to planning to send a contribution.

Even though their positions on the IWR make it impossible for me to support any of the surviving four in the primaries (Graham having already dropped out), Shapiro's portrays all of them as thoroughly decent human beings, unlike the pResident they are striving to defeat. One thing that Shapiro says which really struck a chord is that Dean was the only one of these five candidates *not* to receive a top-secret briefing about Iraq, which he sees as the primary reason that he was the only one not to go along with the IWR. (Although Graham opposed it, his analysis of the situation in Iraq is shown by Shapiro to have been wrongheaded.)

Anyone else here read it? Your impressions?

CYD

[iowapeacechief]

1. I bought it and read most of it...

...when it first came out in early November. I liked his plan and premise but wish he could have brought it just a little later into the process, i.e., reporting up through October (12 months before GE), then rushing to publish by late December. Then we'd all be reading it right now.

[Kathleen04]

2. I read it also..

it was an enjoyable and interesting read. Hearing about the candidates in more lighthearted moments was informative about their character and is important, I think, because it gives them more depth.

I thought his marginalization of Kucinich was a bit unfair, it would have been interesting to read an account of his campaign, but overall I thought that the book was fun to read.

[iowapeacechief]

3. Marginalization...

...was more a function of DK's late entry than Shapiro's intent, I think. But my reaction is like yours.