Inside Jacket

The sordid ephemera of politics have spread even to our most innocent cultural products: children’s books. During the past election season, there was “The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids,” from a Missouri publisher whose owner said that he started receiving death threats after the book got national coverage, with one caller claiming that he’d like to put him in a “chloroform headlock.” And then there was “The Liberal Clause: Socialism on a Sleigh”—written by David Hedrick, who lost in the Republican primary for a House seat in Washington—an illustrated chestnut wherein Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and a dour-looking approximation of Harry Reid (along with special guests Stalin and Mao) conspire to attack freedom and spoil Christmas.

Entering the fray this week is Obama’s own children’s book, “Of Thee I Sing,” in which he uses the stories of famous Americans—Jackie Robinson, Georgia O’Keeffe, George Washington, etc.—to illustrate life lessons to his daughters. (Obama submitted the manuscript before taking office, and the profits from the book will be donated to the Fisher House Foundation, a fund for the children of soldiers who have been disabled or killed.) Sounds harmless enough, but a sitting President (or, as we’ve seen, a former one) can’t seem to publish a book without upsetting a large number of people.

Cue this week’s literary smackdown. In one corner is Fox Nation, a news and opinion Web site run by Fox News, which on Monday ran this headline about Obama’s new book: “Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Killed U.S. General.” (The site has since defanged the headline, “for historical accuracy” as an editor’s note puts it, to “Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Defeated U.S. General,” but the hyperlink remains: “http://nation.foxnews.com/media/2010/11/15/obama-praises-indian-chief-who-killed-us-general.”) Potential responses upon reading this headline: Outrageous! Unpatriotic! Anti-military (that profits-for-military-families thing aside)! Just another example of Obama’s America-last worldview! But what’s really going on here? The short Fox Nation post quotes a story from USA Today that noted among the characters that Obama features, “his most controversial choice may be Sitting Bull, who defeated Custer at Little Bighorn….” (Defeated Custer’s army, that is, rather than killed Custer himself—hence the Fox Nation correction. And even the new headline is a stretch, since the military victory is credited to Crazy Horse and Gall, rather than to Sitting Bull.)

That was it: A headline, which was later changed, in which Fox Nation made a relatively true statement that, without context, communicated a generally false overall message. Misleading is probably the right word, since Obama has clearly not written a book for kids about American military embarrassments. (In an odd juxtaposition, the permanent sidebar feature on the Fox Nation site shows a photo of two men in full headdresses under the words: “Fox Nation Salutes: November Marks Native American Heritage Month.”)

This post is part of The New Yorker’s ongoing coverage of the midterm elections.

As Barack Obama ran to the Presidency in 2008, he was called a once-in-a-generation candidate. But as Ari Berman details in his new book, “Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics,” Obama’s win did not result simply from his unique attributes. Berman, a political correspondent for The Nation, tracks the rapid evolution of Democratic Party politics from Howard Dean’s electrifying but disorganized Presidential run beginning in 2003, to Dean’s development of a “fifty-state” election strategy as head of the Democratic National Committee, to the “frequently overlooked and untold stories of the organizers and activists who labored in obscurity to make [Obama’s] victory a reality.” This week, I checked in with Berman about what the past decade might tell us about the current political climate and about Tuesday’s midterm elections.

The country’s political mood seems to have swung so quickly and severely in just two years. Of the lessons you’ve drawn from 2004, 2006, and 2008, do any still hold true? What looks different today?

Lesson number one is: beware of predictions of electoral realignments! Karl Rove was mistaken to believe that George W. Bush’s reëlection heralded a “permanent Republican majority,” while Democrats were naïve to think that Obama’s election and the large Democratic Congressional majority that resulted from elections in 2006 and 2008 signaled a new progressive era. In this day and age, politics seems to change in a blink of an eye.

But I do think we’ve entered a new political era where grassroots mobilization is really important and political innovation counts for a great deal. Bush was incredibly successful at turning out his supporters in 2004 and Democrats learned from that experience and figured out how to broaden their political coalition and expand into new terrain in 2006 and 2008, bringing a lot of new energy and supporters into the party. And now, two years later, Tea Partiers are doing a similar thing on the Republican side.

Two years after Obama’s Presidential campaign, does his win—and the Democrats’ success more generally—seem to you to have been anomaly? Or are there durable lessons that we can take from the community-organizing principles that went into winning the election?

It was a rare political moment, but I don’t think Obama’s election was an anomaly. In many ways, his election represented the fruition of a grassroots political movement that started with Howard Dean’s insurgent campaign for the presidency in 2003. Dean ran the first campaign of the twenty-first century and Obama was able to perfect the new model that Dean pioneered, first as a Presidential candidate and then as chairman of the Democratic Party from 2003 to 2008. Both candidates drastically reduced the barriers for entry in politics and tried get as many people involved in as many places in as many different ways. And, in doing so, they built an alternate power base that could bypass the traditional political establishment.

Republicans—and the Tea Party specifically—definitely studied these methods and have used them in 2010. I just wrote a piece for TheAtlantic.com about this called “Dean 3.0: What the Tea Party Can Learn from Democrats in 2010 and Beyond.” The Tea Party has raised a significant sum of money over the Internet in small donations, emulated Dean’s fifty-state strategy by running candidates in red and blue states alike, and has begun to take over local Republican parties. The one major caveat is that Tea Party-backed candidates are now also receiving a flood of corporate money from the very G.O.P. establishment they’re claiming to oppose.

Your reporting includes a lot of time spent with Democrats in traditionally red states. What did you find interesting or perhaps even inspiring about their local organizing; and what does the scene look like today in those states where Obama won in 2008?

This post is part of The New Yorker’s ongoing coverage of the midterm elections.

News that Barack Obama met with Jonathan Franzen at the White House this week got us thinking about what books some of the more famous midterm candidates might be reading in the last weekend of the campaign.

• Sharron Angle: Shouldn’t be caught reading “The Manchurian Candidate,” after she told high school students last week that she has “been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly.” A better choice might be “Bringing Down the House,” about the M.I.T. students who ruffled some feathers in Vegas. Of course, should Angle win, she’d get a shot at dismantling the Senate.

• Harry Reid: Might want to check out “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Angle’s competitor in the Nevada Senate race may not be the most likely reader of “Gonzo journalism,” but it would be more interesting than reading the want ads. Alternative choice for a weary warrior: Wallace Stegner’s “Angle of Repose.”

• Christine O’Donnell: This Delaware sensation’s MySpace page lists “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Theology of the Body Explained, and Jane Eyre,” as her favorite books. Wizardry and sex, not good themes, though Brontë may be safe for this weekend. After her First Amendment gaffes, she may want to brush up on the law with the “Pocket Constitution.” Should avoid “Wicked.”

• Carl Paladino: Trailing in New York’s governor race, Paladino may want to court undecideds by softening his anti-gay image. Recommend “Brokeback Mountain” or “Free to Be… You and Me.”

• Andrew Cuomo: Poised to escape his father’s shadow, yet destined to continue the imperial line. Cuomo should leave his dog-eared copy of “I, Claudius,” on the nightstand until after Election Day.

• Ben Quayle: The Congressional hopeful in Arizona could remind voters of his lineage with “The Sun Also Rises,” virility issues aside. Might want to hide his signed copy of “Dreams from My Father,” penned by the man he has called “the worst President in history.” If he’s aiming for higher office, should check out “How to Spell Like a Champ,” to learn when an “o” is enough.

• Rand Paul: Skip “Siddhartha,” “Of Human Bondage,” and “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book,” which includes a classic recipe for hashish fudge.

• John Boehner: Assured of his own relëection in Ohio, Boehner could start preparing for his likely new gig with one of the classic Dale Carnegie texts, say, “The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking.”

Have any other ideas of what the candidates should or shouldn’t be reading? Share them with us in the comments below.

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