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The 2008 presidential race is yielding a big crop of books by and about the politicians. The offerings may not be any better, on average, than the political biographies of the past, but they are more varied -- and each seeks its own niche. We'll keep you posted as they come. -- Alan Cooperman
[an error occurred while processing this directive]PROMISES TO KEEP On Life and Politics
By Joe Biden
Random House. 365 pp. $25.95
As a freshman in high school, Joe Biden confides in Promises to Keep, he had a slight stutter. So the future Democratic senator from Delaware stood in front of a mirror at night practicing his oratory. Once, he even tried "the old Demosthenes trick." He put pebbles in his mouth, tried to speak loudly and nearly choked. Speechifying has always been Biden's passion, and his pitfall. His first presidential bid imploded in 1987 when he adapted a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock to fit the details of his own life and neglected, on at least one occasion, to give Kinnock credit.
It was in the afterglow of a successful speech on foreign policy in 1988 that he collapsed from a brain aneurysm. When his wife arrived at the hospital, he writes, a nurse told her not to enter the room because a priest was administering last rites. With such drama and trauma, even a self-justifying version of Biden's life makes for a lively read.
FEINGOLD A New Democratic Party
By Sanford D. Horwitt
Simon & Schuster. 285 pp. $26
Two votes have ensured Russ Feingold's reputation as a maverick. In 1999, the junior senator from Wisconsin was the sole Democrat to vote to continue the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Three years later, he was the only senator of either party to oppose the USA Patriot Act. Whether those were acts of pure conscience and courage, or of relentless sanctimony and showboating, is a matter of debate in Washington. But you wouldn't know it from this book, written with the senator's extensive cooperation.
Officially, it's an unauthorized biography, but hagiography is closer to the mark. The senator's divorce gets a bare, no-fault mention while his current lifestyle is summed up this way: "He spends much of his time in small towns and celebrates the community-centered virtues reminiscent of his Janesville youth." In short, Feingold gives every appearance of being the campaign biography of a potential candidate who surprised his biographer by deciding not to run.
ENDING POVERTY IN AMERICA
