Getting a read on the Democratic candidates
A stack of the books written by the Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential election. Credit: Newsday/Michael Cusanelli
The Iowa caucus on Monday marks the beginning of the 2020 election season, which means that some people at least have made up their minds.
Iowans had plenty of inputs to help guide their choices, from news coverage to debates to millions of dollars worth of social media and TV ads. But here’s another piece of evidence that may be helpful to voters just tuning in, including New Yorkers whose presidential primary is in April: the candidates’ books.
To be clear, reading each one is not the most time-effective method. Even Beto O’Rourke’s 119-page marijuana legalization manifesto takes a couple hours out of a life to digest. Then there’s the possibility that (as with Beto’s) you finish a book just as a candidate calls it quits. John Delaney’s “The Right Answer” has lots of quirky proposals that might have appealed to a pragmatic Iowa moderate: like his promise as president to engage in quarterly, televised open debates with Congress. He’s still in print, but out of the running.
Still, for the candidates who remain, the books are windows into their worldviews, painted in a way that’s at least moderately more interesting than the vague or empty rhetoric of the campaign. So you have Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders getting angry about the story of a 58-year-old Disney worker who says she often goes without meals and would be fired if she ate guests’ leftovers. “[S]omeone who has worked for an enormously successful and profitable corporation for thirty years should not be going hungry,” he writes.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s book, “This Fight Is Our Fight,” shows her faith in an active government while describing her love for a new interstate highway, which allowed her to get from home to law school in 25 minutes as a young mom.
There’s plenty of pandering in every single one of the books — including former Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s heartland-thrumming line “You can read the progress of the campaign calendar in the condition of the corn.” But the choices the candidates or their ghostwriters make can still be revealing. Mike Bloomberg writes that as a young bachelor “who traveled with a big expense account, I had a girlfriend in every city, skied in every resort, ate in every four star restaurant, and never missed a Broadway play.”
The book first came out two decades ago but was revised last year, and passages like this present the aging billionaire as a swaggering and successful New York businessman, in contrast to the president.
Most important, books that are 300-plus pages can’t help but have at least some interesting details or positions that don’t get sussed out on the debate stage.
Former Vice President Joe Biden writes that one of his first bills as senator “was for public funding of elections,” getting into his record of support for campaign finance. Then there’s Andrew Yang’s book, “The War on Normal People,” which has plenty on his famous $1,000-a-month idea, and also includes some eye-popping moments like the observation that intellect and attractiveness are coming together in some families and neighborhoods due to “assortative mating.”
Some biographical details are vibrantly specific and betray a sense of who these candidates are or want to be — like Biden calling his beloved sons “honey,” or Buttigieg, coming home from Afghanistan, remembering the weight difference between the door on an armored land cruiser vs. a car.
The books are full of such details and arguments as well as extremely, extremely long acknowledgments sections. If you’re still choosing among a few contenders, you don’t necessarily need to go to Iowa to know more about them. Just your local library.
Mark Chiusano is a member of Newsday's editorial board.
Mark Chiusano is a member of the Newsday editorial board.