Redemption Song: An Irish Reporter Inside the Obama Campaign

by Niall Stanage

Overview

This is an updated edition of best-selling Redemption Song: An Irish Reporter Inside the Obama Campaign. For this freshly updated edition Niall Stanage takes the reader inside the Obama White House, evaluating the successes and failures of the new president's first months.

In little more than four years, Barack Obama rose from political obscurity to become the 44th president of the United States. His election win in November 2008 was a moment of enormous historical magnitude, greeted with an outpouring of emotion in the US and around the world. However, on taking office, Obama was faced with unparalleled challenges as the global economy plunged ever-deeper into crisis and the US struggled with the two wars in which it was enmeshed.

In Redemption Song, Niall Stanage tells the extraordinary tale of Obama's journey from community organiser in Chicago to leader of the free world through exclusive interviews with some of the new president's oldest friends and closest advisors. He explores the then-senator's long and acrimonious tussle with Hillary Clinton, sheds new light on his battle with John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin, and hears from the members of the grassroots movement that carried Obama all the way to the Oval Office.

He also provides an intimate account of the first phase of the Obama presidency, reporting from within the White House walls on the new Administration's first tests, triumphs and tribulations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781905483570
Publisher:	Liberties Press
Publication date:	02/20/2015
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Preface 7

1 The Speech 15

2 Leap of Faith 35

3 Girding for Battle 53

4 Yes We Can! 71

5 Trumping the Race Card 88

6 The Warrior 105

7 Elation and Frustration 123

8 An End and a Beginning 143

9 Obama, Ireland and the World 161

10 Unconventional Conventions 181

11 Breaking the Deadlock 199

12 The Final Push 216

13 Chicago 232

Acknowledgements 246

A Note on Sources 248

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

Stanage is a New York-based Irish journalist who contributes to papers on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, in a book intended primarily for UK readers-evident in the historic and cultural background he offers, but American readers can benefit from the non-American perspective-he thinks back over his year of covering Obama. The chapter "Obama, Ireland and the World" examines Obama's international appeal and the diminishing importance of ethnic bias in U.S. voting trends, especially as it relates to Irish American populations. Stanage shows himself grateful to have been able to witness Obama's campaign through press access at close hand. His book will engage American readers in its distinctive approach and in the author's skill in conveying the drama of 2008.
—Jill Ortner

Library Journal