DEMOCRAT ELECTION STRATEGIES to KEEP THE BLACK VOTE
586492
I read this book very quickly and appreciated its content.  All races in American can benefit from reading this book because it addresses the real reason Democrats hold Blacks back with election promises and how they keep Black Americans "down and in need" of government help.  Free stuff is not free;  the cost to the Black man (as well as other races) is dependence on the government instead of self-reliance,  lifting oneself out of Black poverty through work skills.  Riley's advice to Black Americans is obvious in the title of his book.  Very well-written excellent advice for all Black Americans -----and all those who are dependent on government assistance.  This dependence keeps the Black family on the "Democrat/Progressive plantation"..
4125006
All great idea's from someone in the know. My concern is a stolen election. DNC stole it from Bernie, what makes us believe Hiliary can't steal one from the Donald.
3462659
A wonderful little book. This was V. O. Key's final volume; he died before it was published. Perhaps it is most famously summarized by his quotation (Page 7): "The perverse and unorthodox argument of this little book is that voters are not fools." In short, something like a populist work on voting behavior.

Throughout the book, he uses a variety of data--adopting very simple statistical techniques--to develop this point. For instance, he shows that voters who support one party in an election and who then become dissatisfied with that party after the election tend to switch their votes at the next election to the other party. Thus, voters are not Pavlovian dogs, ritually supporting the same party over and over.

All in all, a classic little book. It is still worth rereading a half century after its publication.
4146002
Once again William Noonan has written an insightful book based upon his experiences.
This book provides a concise chronology of how the Democrat's have wound up drifting so far from their roots.
Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Green or un-enrolled, I recommend this book. Read it before the election!
3161795
Love it! Sen. Mike Lee had a similar idea before this. The Democrats can only imitate in failure.
2720044
Bitterly contested Presidential elections are almost as old as the American republic.  Edward Larson builds a strong case that the John Adams Thomas  Jefferson contest of 1800 introduced many of the features that we now take for granted in national campaigns.  The contestants were two leading members of the political elite, each possessed of an impressive resume.  Once close friends, they had fallen out over the constitutional meaning of the federal balance, over such economic issues as banks and taxes, and over the best policies to protect a vulnerable America from the great powers of their time. Underlying the struggle were deep social issues reflecting the differing meanings of democracy in North and South. Internal factional struggles for party control, especially the maddening attempts of Alexander Hamilton to exploit an undeclared war with France, add texture and complexity. The author traces the emergence of a nominating process, shows the rise of position papers and a highly partisan press, watches party managers target doubtful electoral votes, and even identifies the first October surprise. Its all so far back in time, and yet it all sounds so very modern.
1718718
Great book!  We used it for a school project.  What we found is that the information provided still applies today.  Every voter should be required to read this prior to casting a ballot!
3696313
It seems like the last election is just over. And we are already handicapping the potential candidates for 2008. Dick Morris is a long time political guy, usually working behind the scenes to get his man elected. For twenty years he was on Bill Clinton's team and now works as an independent consultant. In this book he presents several points worth discussion regardless of his central theme that the race may well be 'Condi vs. Hillary.'

In the American political system a candidate first has to win the nomination of his party. For the Democrats, this means appealing to a base of activists who are far left of the center. This includes people like the Howard Deans of the world. Mr. Morris correctly points out that Hillary's reputation with the base is excellent. At this point there is no one in sight that could prevent her getting the nomination.

After getting the nomination, the Democratic candidate has to move to the center to convince the electorate in general to vote their way. Hillary has clearly been making moves to gain more appeal in the center. And she clearly has an excellent advisor in her husband who managed to pull this off twice.

The situation with the Republicans is exactly the reverse. The base is farther to the right than the general voter. But you have to have this base on your side to get the nomination.

This book can be broken down into several kind of independent sections. Most interesting to me is his analysis of the vote in 2004. The political parties build coalitions of groups on which to concentrate their political messages. Mr. Morris does an excellent job of looking at the groups that voted in 2004. His analysis of the percentages of African Americans, Latinos, women (black and white), and what it would take to get them to shift just a few percentage points from the 2004 percentages is excellent.

I enjoyed his comments about Hillary and Condi specifically, but it's just too early to tell. Maybe his forecast will make more sense after the first few primaries. But there's one point he didn't mention. Americans tend to elect presidents who have been in previous leadership positions. Bush was a governor, a chief executive of a state. Gore and Kerry were senators, not the boss. Americans elect governors, generals, other leaders before they elect senators and secretaries of state.

Oh well, it promises to be a fun political season to watch.
101320
If you are a Democrat and don't know your parties history, then this is the book for you. Any Democrat who reads this and has half a brain will probably no longer be a Democrat when they're done. It should be required reading for the next black history month
1963768
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Shanesha R.F. Brooks-Tatum have compiled a significant volume on American Black experiences in the Obama era. The chapters are laced with an internal conflict between recent black success and continued black struggles. That is, with the election--and now reelection--of President Barack Obama, there is a perceived legitimization of black achievement, yet at the same time the contributing authors reject the notion of a post-race American society. Ultimately, this volume is approachable and engaging in its ability to recognize contemporary challenges for African Americans while remaining optimistic looking forward. The work offers a contemporary slant on how African Americans manage discrimination and make sense of their identity as it relates to African American leadership in this country.  The consequences of being African American are reconsidered in this work to prompt the reader for a deeper understanding of the struggles involved racial identity.  Though coupled with the realities of racism and marginalization, the message of hope is resounding in this work and is consistent with representation of Obama's leadership.
-- Excerpt from book review written by Pamela Felder and Liam George.
3716735
I recommend this book to all that plan on voting  and all qualified Americans have that responsibility. The author's writings are substantiated.
4232320
Dr. Ransaw has done it again with another book targeting ways to improve education for African American males. With the work of eight authors, including Dr. Doll, this edited volume brings homes longstanding truths on learning, cognition, behavior, dropout prevention, equity, technological insights, and how to leverage challenges for positives with African American males. It is a must read and a toolbox of useful contributions to this important area of study.
1704058
This is another great work of Ed Klein that exposes that bad blood exist between Obama and the Clintons. Clintons were not happy since Obama beat Hilary to win the presidential nomination from the Democratic Party in 2008. So why would Obama care for Hilary's win in 2016? Ed Klein is masterful in exposing the bitterness among this old political nemesis. Hilary reluctantly accepted the role of Secretary of State Position to work for Obama and now she is distancing herself from many Obama's controversial policies. Klein observes that Obama is quietly supporting Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren for the 2016 presidential race. There are sources that say that Warren, "like Obama, wants to transform America into a European-style democratic-socialist state." Another source describes Warren as Obama's "Mini-Me." This is an interesting and thought provoking book; highly recommended.
960302
In Elections in Hard Times, Thomas Flores and Irfan Nooruddin tackle one of the challenging policy questions of the early 21st century: Why do countries keep having elections but fail to become any more democratic? They argue that, to some extent, a selection effect has occurred: all the easy cases, the ones where democracy had the best chance to flourish, democratized early. All the remaining cases, the ones that are still struggling to become fully democratic, face structural constraints that impede the ability of elections to be forces for democratization. In fact, under most of these conditions  conflict, limited fiscal space, and a lack of democratic experience  elections can actually be triggers for democratic backsliding. The struggle to retain power leads to less-than-ideal behaviors by political leaders, with a result that the polity is worse off (democratically) after the election than before.

By focusing on the election outcome  as opposed to its process  as the dependent variable, and treating structural factors as independent variables rather than simply preconditions, Flores & Nooruddin attempt to bridge the significant gap in comparative democratization studies between those in the structuralist camp and those who focus primarily on elections and their competitiveness. By and large, this attempt is successful. The key is the focus on legitimacy, one of the few factors the two existing traditions equally value, though they value different forms. Flores & Nooruddin argue that elections can be democracy promoting contingent on their levels of three types of legitimacy: performance, democratic-institutional, and contingent. High levels of these make for democracy-promoting elections; low levels make good environments for backsliding  and unfortunately, most of the not-yet-fully-democratic states are at low levels of one or more forms of legitimacy. Low fiscal space exacerbates all three problems. Contingent legitimacy comes from winning a (clean) election, but dissipates rapidly and so adds little to re-election chances  unless the incumbent has fiscal resources to turn her initial honeymoon of legitimacy into public policy successes and thereby generate performance legitimacy. Without performance legitimacy, populations are dissatisfied with incumbents and so incumbents turn to cheaper strategies than public goods provision to ensure their re-election. Finally, democratic-institutional legitimacy comes from having previous experience with democracy, which is rare in poor states (especially those who decolonized late) and states with extensive conflict experience.

The books empirics are thorough and well-executed; they are also incredibly well presented given their complexity. The authors clearly paid attention to making the book readable by less technically sophisticated audiences. The concluding substantive chapter on democracy promotion interventions is noteworthy for examining the effectiveness of multiple intervention strategies in a single consistent context, making comparison of their effects possible in a way that is not common in most of the literature. While most of the analysis is preliminary, its sheer existence is a step forward and an encouragement toward further work in that direction.

In short, Flores & Nooruddins argument explains the old maxim that democracy is only sustainable with GDPPC over $5000 a year as being because thats the level at which tax revenues provide sufficient fiscal space to govern by policy rather than by under-the-table politicking. Democratization by election can only occur where state leaders have sufficient fiscal space to pursue policy agendas and govern via public goods provision. That does not occur in states emerging from conflict or states with little prior experience of how democratic politics is supposed to work (though fortunately it only takes a few good years to overcome this hurdle).
2039692
I love this book. The Black Presidency is a reflection on as well a response to Obama's years in office.  Michael Dyson does an excellent job at highlighting the importance of Obama's administration to the masses: and, the disappointments of his tenure to many waiting for "change and hope" in America.  Dyson outlines the complexity of Race in the face of the most powerful man in the Free World who, at times, is hindered by his pigmentation.
806594
This is the way everything should be done - with Transparency, Truth, and Trust. What a different world this would be. Robert David Steele outlines a way. It's up to us to elect those who will, by their ethics and integrity do just that, which pretty well means if we recognize the names and faces,they're not the ones we need because nothing, but nothing will change. Same ol' faces; same ol' empty promises. Yawn! If we truly want governance By the People and For the People, then candidates need to come FROM the People and not the 1%. Campaigns need to address actual solutions for specific issues and not generic, placebo vagaries, and stand on platforms of Transparency, no industry funding period, and absolute Truth. When that happens, they will gain the Trust and Respect of The People - the Ones they are elected to represent - and no Vote without those attributes - OR Decentralize Gov't & make it all LocaL! Part of the problem is Long Distance. People who live with a problem usually know how to solve it. It might be time to think about doing just that. Bring it on Home!
2372350
You don't know your demographic.  Democrats read novels.  Write a Novel.  They are artsy and like FICTION.  lol