The Audacity of Audacious Presidential Candidate Book Titles

***I apologize ahead of time for posting something so incredibly geeky, but this is truly annoying to me.***

The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama

Hard Call - John McCain

A Call to Service - John Kerry

Winning Back America - Howard Dean

A Time to Lead - Wesley K. Clark

A Charge to Keep - George W. Bush


Typically these presidential candidate autobiographies are either only co-written by, or ghost written for, the candidates themselves. The main title contains carefully chosen language written in iambic duometric verse ("a BOOK to READ!"). I couldn't find Hillary Clinton's (her last book was "In Living History"), or Al Gore's from 2000 (was it "Earth in the Balance?") but the rest pretty much fall in line with one of the more nauseating trends in modern American politics. I'm certain that royalties from the book help pay for the campaign, or help pay for the candidate's personal bills while he or she campaigns, but otherwise, these books are thinly veiled attempts at marketing the candidate's "vision" under the pretense that he or she actually have thought through why they're running for the highest office in the land.

I hate the marketing aspects of modern presidential campaigns. :puke:

~Writer~

Dayum, you is harsh. There's nothing wrong with marketing America. Our country was born by marketing. The Declaration of Independence (with its iambic verse title) was itself simply ad copy for justifying the war by a long list of dubious complaints.

Marketing is capitalism's calling card; and free enterprise is everything that America is about. This is the soul of what the Founders meant when they enshrined the right to the pursuit of happiness. That one commercial, written 132 years ago this July 4th has sold the American dream to markets as diverse as Napolean Bonoparte, Ho Chi Minh, and Mohandas Gandhi. And what are the 15th and 19th Amendments except expanding the market for freedom into new demographic niches?

Never take marketing lightly; never take it for granted. It is the greatest gift of the marketplace of ideas. It is the muscle and fibre by which democracy and popular sovereignty thrive and spread.

There are days when I might be inclined to vote for the first candidate who pens a work with a title like "I Fart in Your General Direction" or "Let's Keep Digging, But Don't Expect a Damn Pony."

Clinton's book was simply LIVING HISTORY (no IN). I don't think she's written a campaign book. Her husband's post presidential book broke the "A TOME to PONDER" paradigm as well. He called his MY LIFE.

Al Gore's interest in the environment predated his presidential ambitions. Well, not really--they actually, to be accurate, postdated his failed attempt at running for president in 88. The full title of his book is EARTH IN THE BALANCE: ECOLOGY AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT. He wrote the book between then and when he was chosen as VP for Clinton.

and coloring within the line challenges...