Omega
Post by beth on Sept 16, 2010 11:01:44 GMT -5
Meghan McCain's new book about he father's 2008 presidential campaign.
Required Reading: Dirty Sexy Politics
By Ken Lowe - September 9, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Dirty Sexy Politics
Meghan McCain
Hyperion, 208 pp.
ISBN: 1401323774
On Amazon
Meghan McCain, daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain, has either been thrust into the public eye or has thrust herself into the public eye. She’s either dramatic or just wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s either the new standard-bearer for young, big-tent conservatism, or just really good at Rock Band. After reading her book, “Dirty Sexy Politics,” it’s tough to tell.
You need to take her “I am the face of young Republicans” with a grain of salt. If my dad ran for President on the GOP’s dime, I’d be Republican, too, no matter what else I believed.
Still, she’s less pretentious than any of the bloated talking heads on cable news (for which she expresses uncensored and welcome disdain).
At a svelte 192 pages, you can knock out “Dirty Sexy Politics” while waiting for your laundry to finish drying, and before you notice the title is missing a comma. It’s McCain’s story of her year-and-a-half campaigning and blogging on her father’s behalf, and on behalf of a party she says makes people her age and with her outlook feel unwanted. “Why were the young doomed to become Democrats just because they weren’t accepted elsewhere?” she fumes.
McCain describes how calculation and posture dominates the life of a “daughter-of,” as she refers to herself, and in that regard, she has meaningful insight. She was acutely aware her role was to look pretty for the cameras. She speculates what emotional toll Hillary Clinton labors under when she spends time selecting the right pant suit – time a male candidate could be spending thinking about issues.
The book dishes on all sorts of fascinating little secrets of the campaign. When did John McCain truly admit defeat? (5 p.m. Pacific time, in a huddle with his family members.) Did the campaign know anything about Bristol Palin’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy prior to vetting her mother? (Apparently not, and Meghan McCain says the discovery had staff members shell-shocked. Palin apparently wore concealed sweaters and blankets to try to hide it until a day or so later.)
Of course, you’ll also find out which state McCain thinks smells (Iowa), what materials you should not wear while on stage to avoid see-through bra exposure (cottons, silks, linens), and which designer outfits McCain thinks complement her best (Diane von Furstenberg).
For such a slim volume, too much of it is campaign anecdotes that go nowhere. She heaps praise on too many of her friends and says mean things about a lot of her enemies - I imagine campaign manager Steve Schmidt wasn’t happy after having a summary handed to him.
Putting all that aside, McCain makes one strong argument, and one her party is likely to ignore because of the frivolity surrounding it: She wants to be Republican, and is being turned away for reasons she believes are petty and not even in keeping with the character of the party. When the elderly base of the party dies off, she asks, who will be left?
She’s the one person I’ve read who seems to wonder how she can change this, when her party, it seems, wonders why she should bother.
herald-review.com/app/blogs/rollcall/?p=297
Required Reading: Dirty Sexy Politics
By Ken Lowe - September 9, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Dirty Sexy Politics
Meghan McCain
Hyperion, 208 pp.
ISBN: 1401323774
On Amazon
Meghan McCain, daughter of U.S. Sen. John McCain, has either been thrust into the public eye or has thrust herself into the public eye. She’s either dramatic or just wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s either the new standard-bearer for young, big-tent conservatism, or just really good at Rock Band. After reading her book, “Dirty Sexy Politics,” it’s tough to tell.
You need to take her “I am the face of young Republicans” with a grain of salt. If my dad ran for President on the GOP’s dime, I’d be Republican, too, no matter what else I believed.
Still, she’s less pretentious than any of the bloated talking heads on cable news (for which she expresses uncensored and welcome disdain).
At a svelte 192 pages, you can knock out “Dirty Sexy Politics” while waiting for your laundry to finish drying, and before you notice the title is missing a comma. It’s McCain’s story of her year-and-a-half campaigning and blogging on her father’s behalf, and on behalf of a party she says makes people her age and with her outlook feel unwanted. “Why were the young doomed to become Democrats just because they weren’t accepted elsewhere?” she fumes.
McCain describes how calculation and posture dominates the life of a “daughter-of,” as she refers to herself, and in that regard, she has meaningful insight. She was acutely aware her role was to look pretty for the cameras. She speculates what emotional toll Hillary Clinton labors under when she spends time selecting the right pant suit – time a male candidate could be spending thinking about issues.
The book dishes on all sorts of fascinating little secrets of the campaign. When did John McCain truly admit defeat? (5 p.m. Pacific time, in a huddle with his family members.) Did the campaign know anything about Bristol Palin’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy prior to vetting her mother? (Apparently not, and Meghan McCain says the discovery had staff members shell-shocked. Palin apparently wore concealed sweaters and blankets to try to hide it until a day or so later.)
Of course, you’ll also find out which state McCain thinks smells (Iowa), what materials you should not wear while on stage to avoid see-through bra exposure (cottons, silks, linens), and which designer outfits McCain thinks complement her best (Diane von Furstenberg).
For such a slim volume, too much of it is campaign anecdotes that go nowhere. She heaps praise on too many of her friends and says mean things about a lot of her enemies - I imagine campaign manager Steve Schmidt wasn’t happy after having a summary handed to him.
Putting all that aside, McCain makes one strong argument, and one her party is likely to ignore because of the frivolity surrounding it: She wants to be Republican, and is being turned away for reasons she believes are petty and not even in keeping with the character of the party. When the elderly base of the party dies off, she asks, who will be left?
She’s the one person I’ve read who seems to wonder how she can change this, when her party, it seems, wonders why she should bother.
herald-review.com/app/blogs/rollcall/?p=297