If I Could Be Like Bobby

Posted by Nick Beaudrot

To maintain the Law of Conservation of Blog Post Length, I'll answer Ezra's book query in short order.

I just picked up The Gospel According to RFK to feed my Bobby "first New Democrat" Kennedy hero-worship. It's a collection of speech excerpts from Kennedy's 1968 Presidential campaign -- all quality stuff, but with enough length to remind you that even RFK doesn't drip eloquence from every single sentence that comes out of his mouth. There are plenty of good speeches, on health care, poverty, civic responsibility, and foreign policy, and while one out of every three chapters will draw out enough empathy to have you on the verge of tears, the rest of the book is "just" a bucnh of good campaign speeches.

It'd be tough to revive Bobby's political coalition, and his policies are a bit obsolete now, but if more Democrats learned to talk like Bobby, they'd lose way fewer elections.