A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

Mark Halperin and John Harris play Machiavelli in detailing how best to win the 2008 Presidential race. Much of what they write makes sense; Halperin and Harris argue contra Richard Nixon's old maxim that a candidate should not run to his/her ideological base during the primaries and caucuses and then run towards the center during the general election--far better to maintain a consistent campaign theme throughout both the nomination process and during the general election fight. Additionally, Halperin and Harris praise and emphasize the need for rapid response to political attacks (the Bush Administration should have learned this lesson long ago). They also detail how best to deal with scandal or mini-scandal revelations (do extensive opposition research on yourself), the importance of being up on policy issues (one of Bill Clinton's great strengths was his reputation as a policy wonk) and they intersperse the book with a number of "trade secrets" that presumably every candidate should be aware of in preparation for 2008.

Halperin and Harris pay proper tribute to Bill Clinton as the preeminent strategist on the Democratic side of the partisan divide and to Karl Rove on the Republican side. They also identify Hillary Clinton and John McCain as the strongest candidates on their respective sides. Unfortunately, their infatuation with Clinton's and McCain's strengths seem to cause Halperin and Harris some blind spots in evaluating their chances. To be sure, both authors detail ways in which Hillary Clinton may be denied the Presidency, but they never discuss two of her chief weaknesses; her general lack of eloquence and the absolute lack of a rationale concerning her candidacy (other than the fact that electing a former First Lady as President of the United States would be a historic event). As for McCain, his weaknesses are barely touched on.

Halperin and Harris also spend an appreciable amount of time decrying "the Freak Show," which makes political coverage seem like a constant scandal-watch. To be sure, much of their criticisms concerning the Freak Show are well-taken, but both authors make the mistake of thinking that the Internet Age bears a significant amount of responsibility for the Freak Show. I don't doubt that times have changed since the days when we relied on three network broadcasts to give us the news in one hour each day, but it is quite a stretch to argue--as Halperin and Harris do--that the Internet Age has somehow augmented cheap scandalmongering. Much of the decrying of the Freak Show is also dedicated to extolling the virtues of Old Journalism over the New Media in general and the Blogosphere in particular. I am not one of these people who thinks that the Old Media does not have its virtues, but it did strike me as bizarre and self-serving that two old line journalists were spending so much time in their book decrying the New Media. Their critiques become especially discordant when one considers this episode. As the "Sixty-First Minute" mini-drama shows, the Old Media is perfectly capable of conducting a Freak Show of its own and needs the New Media to keep the story in line with the facts.

These and other weaknesses aside, Halperin's and Harris's book is a good and entertaining one. But it is not without its weaknesses. And those weaknesses should not go unnoticed.