The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House

by Chuck Todd

Overview

Chuck Todd's gripping, fly-on-the-wall account of Barack Obama's tumultuous struggle to succeed in Washington.
Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 partly because he was a Washington outsider. But if he'd come to the White House thinking he could change the political culture, he soon discovered just how difficult it was to swim against an upstream of insiders, partisans, and old guard networks allied to undermine his agenda---including members of his own party. He would pass some of the most significant legislation in American history, but his own weaknesses torpedoed some of his greatest hopes.

In THE STRANGER, Chuck Todd draws upon his unprecedented inner-circle sources to create a gripping account of Obama's White House tenure, from the early days of drift and helplessness to a final stand against the GOP in which an Obama, at last liberated from his political future, finally triumphs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316245203
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	11/11/2014
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	736
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Chuck Todd is NBC News Political Director and the moderator of Meet the Press, the flagship Sunday morning public affairs program and longest-running broadcast in television history. Prior to taking the helm of Meet the Press in September 2014, Todd served as NBC News Chief White House Correspondent (2008-2014) as well as host of MSNBC's The Daily Rundown (2010-2014).

Todd has held the role of Political Director since March 2007, leading all aspects of the news division's political coverage and analysis across every platform. He is also the editor of First Read, NBC's must-read guide to political news and trends in and around Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Stranger 3

1 A Not-So-Fresh Start 25

2 Getting Rolled Early 85

3 Unplanned Legacy 116

4 Triage 178

5 The Re-election Begins … Sort Of 229

7 The Winter Thaw 268

8 The Veep Steps Up 291

9 Coming Around on Clinton 308

10 The Hunt Begins 335

11 Trump, bin Laden, and the Craziest Week of the Presidency 361

12 The Chief Executive Learns to Manage 386

13 A Challenger Emerges 427

14 If He Had a Son 518

15 They Were First-Graders 558

16 The Lost Year 576

17 A Thick Red Line 610

18 Control-Alt-Delete 645

19 The Legacy 673

Acknowledgments 705

Notes 711

Editorial Reviews

The book delivers a stinging indictment of [Obama's] presidency so far…The overall picture that emerges here is that of a highly insular and centralized White House that is reluctant to listen to outside experts, prone to cutting cabinet members out of the loop and unable or unwilling to learn from its mistakes…Mr. Todd…has grounded his arguments in hundreds of interviews with Washington sources and his intimate knowledge of how that city works or (more often, these days) fails to work…The Stranger…provides the lay reader with a brisk, if depressing overview of the Obama White House, while giving Washington insiders plenty of colorful new details.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

09/15/2014
Todd, the newly minted Meet the Press host and former NBC chief White House correspondent, provides an even-handed, concise, and thorough account of President Obama’s first six years in the Oval Office. Todd frames his perspective with his choice of title—President Obama “came to Washington on the strength of being a stranger to the city and to the political elites, but it hasn’t always served him well.” He covers in great detail the die-hard obstructionism, exemplified in Sen. Mitch McConnell’s proclamation that his priority was to deny Obama a second term, that has characterized the Republican response to the president’s agenda. But Todd doesn’t believe that right-wing extremism lets the president off the hook, and offers example after example of times when his aloof approach to Congress hobbled his legislative initiatives. The book also compares the efficiency of Obama’s electoral campaigns to his subpar management in office. There isn’t a lot here that will be news to readers who follow politics closely—no Bob Woodward–type revelations—but the thoughtful organization of material make this as good a summation of Obama’s successes and failures, and the reasons for them, as anything else out there. Agent: Matthew Carnicelli, Carnicelli Literary Management. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Richly sourced and deeply informed....There aren't many Washington journalists with the access, reporting skills, and authorial dexterity to write a comprehensive history of a presidential administration while it's still racking up miles on Air Force One. Todd delivers a surprising depth of insider reporting considering how few insiders have spoken publickly about this administration."—Scott Porch, Chicago Tribune

"Todd is the rare Washington commentator whose on-air musings are consistently backed by authoritative reporting....He knows his subject, and he knows how to write....Readers of The Stranger unquestionably benefit from Mr. Todd's Beltway-insider status."—Robert Draper, Wall Street Journal

"Revealing....Mr. Todd has grounded his arguments in hundreds of interviews with Washington sources and his intimate knowledge of how that city works or (more often, these days) fails to work."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Todd, the newly minted Meet the Press host and former NBC chief White House correspondent, provides an even-handed, concise, and thorough account of President Obama's first six years in the Oval Office."—Publishers Weekly

"A compelling, behind-the-scenes account of President Obama's first six years in office."—HuffPost Live

From the Publisher

2014-09-30
A biography of the sitting president, who, by the author's account, would rather be anywhere but Washington, D.C.—or at least, doing anything but practicing politics as usual.Todd, newly anointed moderator of Meet the Press and a longtime NBC White House correspondent, wonders how so fortunate a campaigner as Barack Obama should "appear to be so bad at practicing the basics of politics in the back rooms of Washington, whether on Capitol Hill, on K Street, or at the Pentagon." A psychobiography may be needed to delve into the many reasons why Obama shuns confrontation, but in practical matters, Todd has it just about right: Obama is used to going it alone, doesn't mind the essential loneliness of being the leader of the free world and really means it when he decries the politics of division. All of these things make Obama, in Todd's overused formulation, a "stranger" in the clubby company town that is Washington. By Todd's reckoning, Obama may be his own worst enemy, given that in so many instances, his "struggles came from his focus on ends to the exclusion of productive means." Make nicer with John Boehner, in other words, and things might happen. Of course, as the author details, it doesn't help that the president's allies have their own agendas and that policy wonks within the White House can't agree on whether the economy is good or bad or in between. Still, the author offers a good explanation for why, positively or negatively, Obama seems so removed from both the fray and his own party, having resigned himself, at least in some measure, to the thought that "the Obama brand and the Democratic Party brand were distinct." Without much hard news that hasn't been written about elsewhere and not the equal of David Remnick's The Bridge (2010) in literary merit. Yet, both timely and pragmatic, this book is sure to attract attention.

Kirkus Reviews