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| 2008 Election: | McCain's book | Obama's book | Biden's book | Palin's booklet | Keyes' book | Nader's book | Barr's book | 2008 Debates |
A Bound Man Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win, by Shelby Steele  (Click for Amazon book review) BOOK REVIEW by OnTheIssues.org: This book is about Obama's mixed race and how it affects his outlook on life and society. It contains very little about Obama's policy stances -- focusing almost exclusively on the aspects of how race -- and mixed-race -- affects Obama's candidacy for the presidency. Readers interested in Obama's policies should read excerpts from the several other books linked at the bottom of this page. The author, Shelby Steele, is in a unique position to explore this subject, because he too is a child of a racially-mixed marriage, and he too is in the world of politics. Like Sen. Obama, Mr. Steele has a black father and a white mother. Mr. Steele is a researcher at the Hoover Institution, which is generally considered a conservative think-tank. Hence Mr. Steele identifies with Sen. Obama in terms of their common background, but does not identify in terms of political outlook. Nevertheless, the clause in the title "Why He Can't Win" is not much explored -- and I don't conclude after reading this book that Mr. Steele believes that Sen. Obama cannot win. This book was written after Obama made his intentions clear that he would enter the presidential race. Hence its intended audience is either Obama supporters who wish to understand how race defines the Senator's character, or Obama detractors who wish to find reasons to vote against the Senator. Both groups will find this book interesting. Mr. Steele digs deep enough to explore Obama's college relationships (some black women, some white women, and one multiracial woman) -- from which he interprets Obama's struggle to determine his own racial identity. Mr. Steele similarly explores Obama's choice of jobs, church, and political manner from a racial perspective. Mostly, Mr. Steele analyzes Obama's book, "Dreams From My Father," in psychological, racial, and political analyses. Because this book is really about how blacks deal with white society, there is a lot of material that is not actually ABOUT Obama, but of course is RELEVANT to Obama. I suspect that Mr. Steele had written much of this material prior to deciding on a book about Obama, and Obama provided a strong focal point (a "news hook", as journalists say). Since the purpose of the book is to understand Obama, that material is certainly interesting -- but it's not excerpted here because OnTheIssues.org has no place for explanatory background information like that. In summary, Mr. Steele's treatise on black America includes chapters contrasting the following black personalities:
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