Renegade

The Making of a President

By: Richard Wolffe

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Before the White House and Air Force One, before the TV ads and the enormous rallies, there was the real Barack Obama: A man wrestling with the momentous decision to run for the presidency, feeling torn about leaving behind a young family, and figuring out how to win the biggest prize in politics.

This book is the previously untold and epic story of how a political newcomer with no money and an alien name grew into the world’s most powerful leader. But it is also a uniquely intimate portrait of the person behind the iconic posters and the Secret Service code name Renegade. Drawing on a dozen unplugged interviews with the candidate and president, as well as 21 months covering his campaign as it traveled from coast to coast, Richard Wolffe answers the simple yet enduring question about Barack Obama: Who is he?

Based on Wolffe’s unprecedented access to Obama, Renegade reveals the making of a president, both on the campaign trail and before he ran for high office. It explains how the politician who emerged in an extraordinary election learned the personal and political skills to succeed during his youth and early career. With cool self-discipline, calculated risk taking, and simple storytelling, Obama developed the strategies he would need to survive the onslaught of the Clintons and John McCain, and build a multimillion-dollar machine to win a historic contest.

In Renegade, Richard Wolffe shares with us his front-row seat at Obama’s announcement to run for president on a frigid day in Springfield, and his victory speech on a warm night in Chicago. We fly on the candidate’s plane and ride in his bus on an odyssey across a country in crisis; stand next to him at a bar on the night he secures the nomination; and are backstage as he delivers his convention speech to a stadium crowd and a transfixed national audience. From a teacher’s office in Iowa to the Oval Office in Washington, we see and hear Barack Obama with an immediacy and honesty never witnessed before. Renegade provides not only an account of Obama’s triumphs, but also examines his many personal and political trials. We see Obama wrestling with race and politics, as well as his former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. We see him struggling with life as a presidential candidate, a campaign that falters for most of its first year, and his reaction to a surprise defeat in the New Hampshire primary. And we see him relying on his personal experience, as well as meticulous polling, to pass the presidential test in foreign and economic affairs. Renegade is an essential guide to understanding President Barack Obama and his trusted inner circle of aides and friends. It is also a riveting and enlightening first draft of history and political psychology.

©2009 Richard Wolffe (P)2009 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"The first of the President Obama books - and a good one - insightful, thorough, and straight." (Ben Bradlee, Washington Post)
"A superb achievement....Richard Wolffe's Renegade tells the hidden, dramatic story of the 2008 campaign and also reveals much we did not know about the 44th president's life before politics." (Michael Beschloss)
"I learned something new on practically every page." (Gwen Ifill)

Inside story of an historic election

Wolfe does an excellent job capturing the mood of the campaign, from unrestrained optimism to crushing doubt. This election will become transformitive in American history once we have time to gain a better perspective. The only critism of this excellent book is that it jumps back and forth to Iowa. It seemed like every time a turning point is reached, somehow we're back in Iowa. Overall, a tremendous book.

Get It!!

Full disclosure: I am a Progressive and I supported Obama in the presidential campaign and I continue to support him. That being said, this book was wonderful to listen to, a fantastic book that was written very well and read like a good novel! It held my interest right through from beginning to end, and I am well-informed to begin with. The narratation was outstanding. Overall, I had a very positive experience with it!

Insights into the greatest Presidential Campaign

Having followed the 2008 Presidential Campaign live, I found Renegade riveting from the first word to the last. The book provided depth, insight and perspective to the events of the prolonged 2008 campaign that I had superficially followed in the news and internet and TV. It brought back the excitement and competitiveness of the democratic nomination and the presidential campaign. The audio reader captivated my attention in revisiting the characters and plot for the run up to the presidency; Obama, Biden, Clinton, McCain, Palin and others. This audiobook Renegade has earned a favorite place on my iPod.

Renegade is Excellent

I don't always know what to expect with these types of books, but "Renegade" is first rate.

I Enjoyed Richard Wolffe's "Renegade"

Richard Wolffe's access to the Obama inner circle from the earliest days of the Iowa campaign combines with his great talent as a journalist and storyteller to make for a great read. His research and writing contributes to our knowledge of the new President in a very entertaining way. The narration was excellent as well. Good book, good production!

Fantastic

Great insight into President Obama, his campaign staff, and his journey to the White House.

sadly superficial and illed with cliches

This long anticipated book sadly fails to capture the complexity of this fatherless hawaiian boy (I knew his father who was nothing like he is described by Neil abercrombie, Hawaii's Congressman).

Wolfe in no way captures barac's exceptional intellect and his capacity to grasp deep psychological truths about the people he deals with and the conditions he encounters.

Nothing in ths account explains how he assembled this amazingly competent team and seamlesslessly mouled them into an amazing fighting machine, and his power to inspire submission and loyalty among this team of towering egos
Nothing here has not been peviously published in the national media.
The story remains to be told