★★★★★ 5
Essential reading for Democratic campaign managers
Format: Kindle
For decades it has frustrated me that, while most of the country shares Democratic beliefs over Republican ones, Democrats keep losing elections. Why?
Because the very values Democrats hold dear...taking the higher road, trying to stay "above the fray", concentrating on issues over personalities...fail to speak to the emotional brain that makes most voters' electoral decisions. Whether it's the language they use while failing to understand its connotations, over-handling by committees that blunt the message, or simple refusal to debate some topics at all (abortion, gun control, race) thereby defaulting on them to the Republicans, Democrats systematically undermine their own campaigns.
Westen's book is must reading for every Democrat who wants to hold public office! Thus, the five stars.
On the other hand, Westen makes his point clearly and firmly in the first third of the book, and then beats us over the head with it, taking us point by point through campaigns, tweaking the information endlessly, and frankly, about halfway through I started skimming and eventually put it down. "I get it already!" I thought, and moved on.
Also, this is horribly produced ebook. It's obviously scanned from a printed copy and poorly proofread, it at all. When Westen talks about the perception of the word "gull" and how it affects elections, you have to read a bit to understand that it's the word "gun" he's talking about! Words bizarrely split, words run together, bizarre punctuation and misspelling due to OCR errors are rife on every single page.
Furthermore, the type looks like bad photocopying with the machine set on "light." Ugly, ugly, ugly. Yet the publisher (Hatchette) charges nearly as much for the ebook as for the print book, which I'm sure looks a lot better. It couldn't look any worse.
If I could, I'd rate it "five stars" for the content, downgrade it to "three stars" for being redundant, and finally give it "one star" for being so terribly produced.
That first third of the book, though, is so important for Democrats to understand (the Republicans already have a masterful grasp of it) that I went with the "five star" rating.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2011