Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

It’s that time of year. Smiling at you from your local bookstore, wearing the power tie, the dark navy suit, looking rugged but not too rugged, trim, confident, saying to you from that picture on the cover, “Vote for Me.” It’s election time, and the campaign books are here.

The question is why. Why in a television and Internet age do politicians still bother to publish campaign books? And the word is “publish,” because few of the words found in the contemporary campaign memoir are actually written by the candidate. There are exceptions--Al Gore probably wrote most of his 1992 polemic on the environment and Bill Bradley almost certainly wrote his engaging memoir--but for the most part, the campaign book is assembled much as a campaign speech is, by a staff of consultants and professional writers who translate the candidate’s “vision” into prose.

Perhaps realizing that the rationale isn’t immediately obvious, the candidates sometimes answer that question in the first few pages. George W. Bush, trying to ensure that others would not define him before he had an opportunity to define himself, said that he published “A Charge to Keep” so that he could “tell my own story from my own perspective.” However, he cautions readers that the book “is not intended to be a comprehensive look at every moment in my life,” nor is it “intended to replace the presidential campaign in which I will lay out a detailed agenda.” Steve Forbes, believing that in 1996, he wasn’t “able to get my message across as fully as I would have liked,” wrote “A New Birth of Freedom” in 1999 in order “to show how we can launch a new birth of freedom that will help all Americans achieve their dreams.” Reform Party candidate Donald Trump--yes, the Donald--thinks that the American people want a president who will “tell it like is,” and he hopes that his ideas will at the least provoke debate. He also wants to honor the memory of his father, who recently passed away.

Fathers feature prominently in this current crop of memoirs, and in none more so than in John McCain’s “Faith of My Fathers.” McCain offers no political positions, no specifics about how he would reform Social Security or revise the tax code. Instead, the book is a paean to family, to the Navy and to heroism. “Faith of My Fathers” reads like what the subtitle says it is, “A Family Memoir.” It’s a very male book, recounting three generations of Navy officers and McCain’s horrific years as a POW in North Vietnam while his father was the commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific. It’s hard to tell how much of the book is McCain and how much is coauthor Mark Salter, but regardless of authorship, it’s a remarkable account of a man and his family, at times humorous, candid about the strengths and weaknesses of the clan McCain (strong-willed men with a fondness for booze and a tendency to rebel against authority) and searingly frank about the transformative effects of captivity. Yet it is a campaign statement nonetheless, meant to convey the essence of McCain’s character to the voter. Without saying so directly, McCain conveys his belief that character, rather than any specific platform, makes a man fit to be president. In the wake of the politics of the late 1990s, Americans may be sensitive to moral timbre, and McCain is betting that his personal rectitude and heroism will convince large numbers of people to vote for him. That worked for Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, but it did not much help Adm. James Stockdale and the Reform Party in 1992.

George W. Bush, Al Gore and Steve Forbes are also shadowed by powerful fathers--President George Bush, Sen. Albert Gore Sr. and Malcolm Forbes. In fact, it’s hard to recall a previous campaign in which the major figures are so linked to parents who danced on the political stage. The contrast with President Clinton, whose father was absent, is striking. None of the candidates draws an explicit comparison with the current president, but they take pains to emphasize their bonds with their parents--a tactic that points to the discomfort many Americans feel about the “decay” of the traditional family and the rise of single-parent homes.

George W. claims that Bush senior rarely gave him explicit political advice though, like McCain, he talks of how his father instilled integrity, a set of values and “the moral courage to do what is right for the right reason.” Like McCain, Bush steers clear of firm policy pronouncements, but he also avoids moral subtlety or human complexity. His memoir, whose first ghostwriter was fired and whose second is Bush’s communications director, drips with vacuity. The book is a compendium of homilies, a McGuffey’s Reader for the voter. “Government must be limited and focused, but it has an important job within its bounds. Government is too often wasteful and overreaching. But we must correct it and limit it, not disdain it.” Hard to argue with such sentiments, and that is the point. There is little to dispute in George W.’s memoir, and little to grasp, unless you think that politics is a game of dueling aphorisms. Unfortunately, there are ample signs that contemporary politics is just that. George W., armed with a huge war chest and a mountain of endorsements, apparently believes he has more to lose with specificity and nuance than he does by taking the high road.

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It is difficult to imagine any prospective voter will pick up the memoir and think, “Gee, this guy is on to something. I think I’ll vote for him.” And it’s hard to believe that anyone on George W.’s staff thinks otherwise. Presumably, he could have skipped the memoir altogether and been none the worse for it. But these books have become a campaign staple, like stump speeches, debates and advertising. Even an anemic memoir can be a useful adjunct to a campaign. In “A Charge to Keep,” there are glimmers of content, especially in the final chapter, when Bush articulates his philosophy of “compassionate conservatism.” It’s vision lite, but it is not completely vision-less. Further, simply the book’s existence can serve a function. Copies can be distributed as tokens of thanks at fund-raising events. The jacket features an appealing photo and a poetic title, which evokes honor and commitment. Even if most of the public doesn’t read or buy these books, sufficient numbers of people stream through airports and malls near bookstores where they’re displayed, serving as mini-billboards and static advertisements. Even if the book isn’t read, it will be seen.

For longshot contenders, a book is a bona fide opportunity to enunciate a vision and to lay out a program. Unlike George W. or Al Gore (who, after writing “Earth in the Balance”--a sober, controversial examination of environmental degradation--in 1992, has not felt the need to write a more conventional campaign book this time around), second-tier contenders use the campaign book to grab some national attention. Sometimes, by the time the book comes out, it is already too late. Dan Quayle’s “Worth Fighting For” appeared in mid-1999, when Quayle still clung to the hope of a viable run for the presidency, but by summer’s end, his campaign folded. Others have better timing. Trump’s book appeared this month, and he pulls no punches, denouncing the hypocrisy of Congress for persecuting Clinton for the same sexual misconduct that Trump claims several Republican congressmen (unnamed) committed at Trump’s hotels. Trump also proposes a national effort to deter terrorism and a change in campaign finance laws that would lift the cap on personal donations while severely restricting “soft money.” That way, Trump claims, candidates wouldn’t need to scrounge for endless donations and could instead pay more attention to the nuts and bolts of substantive debate.

Trump’s breezy campaign book succeeds in establishing him as a legitimate candidate, even though few people are disposed to take him seriously. Trump’s ability to speak without the usual stentorian platitudes is refreshing, but even so, his book shines only because of its lackluster cohorts.

Trump lacks the gravitas and depth of former Sen. Bill Bradley, who distinguishes himself as a mature, decent man in “Time Present, Time Past.” Of all the campaign books that have appeared recently, Bradley’s is by far the most impressive. He comes across as a thoughtful, learned legislator, who cops to his mistakes and ranges widely--literally--across the landscape of American culture and politics. He devotes one chapter to his work in the Senate on reforming California’s Central Valley Project, the byzantine system that feeds irrigation water to California agriculture. He spent months talking to different interest groups and traveled extensively in order to learn about the issue’s complexities. The result was a bill that protected the needs of agribusiness but allowed cities easier access to water. Bradley then shepherded a reform bill through Congress and pressured a reluctant president to sign the legislation. Bradley brought the same care to tax reform in 1986, to his service on the Senate Intelligence Committee (responsible for oversight of the CIA) and to writing his memoir.

But the fact that he can produce a thoughtful book doesn’t mean that he should be president. A good campaign book may not say anything about the potential for being a good president, nor is a bad campaign book an accurate indicator of the obverse proposition. For the reviewers and journalists who read these books, that correlation is tempting. In the world of news, information and entertainment, the skills required to pen or at least assemble a compelling book are valued and admired. However, those same skills may be useless in the corridors of Washington. Bradley shows that it is possible to write a marvelous, substantive book, in stark contrast to George W. Bush and to most contemporary politicians. But Jimmy Carter also brought care and integrity to his preelection memoir, and he proved to be an inept president. Literary skill is no sure indicator of political acumen.

Of course, prose that goes down like pabulum doesn’t win candidates any support among the people who cover campaigns, and both Bush and Forbes have been excoriated for the books they have produced. Steve Forbes’ love letter to the flat tax may be heartfelt, but it earns scorn from reviewers, television commentators and political journalists. Most candidates and most reporters look favorably on tax reform, but Forbes isn’t criticized on substance as much as he fails on style. The excoriation of Forbes transcends his campaign book, but the book is a reminder of naivete that Forbes can ill afford. A sophomoric campaign memoir can be a liability, especially for someone running from behind, as Forbes is, but it can also be a problem for a front-runner. Bush’s memoir has added to the suspicion that there is precious little there there, and even though Bush has a formidable lead in the polls and in fund-raising, he can’t blithely alienate the people who will be covering him. “A Charge to Keep” is far from a lethal misstep, but it demonstrates the difficulty of walking the line between inoffensive inexactness and an insult to the intelligence of the few who will read the prose.

Different candidates pick different risks. George W. obviously feels more comfortable presenting neutral pap than he does exposing his personality in print. Bradley and McCain use their memoirs to offer the public a peek into that which they hold most dear, and they have accordingly been rewarded with praise from those who write about books. In the end, however, it is unlikely that any of these books will really matter, and few of them will be really read. The written word and the printed page still retain enough iconic status to justify the publication of the campaign memoir, and some journalists will find them a useful source reference for questions, interviews and quotations, but with the exception of Bradley and McCain, the books published during this current election cycle are remarkably vapid.

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It’s tempting to mourn the current state of the campaign book, but in truth, it is simply a symptom of the political process. The current crop reflects the degree to which campaigns are ever more about symbols and ever less about substance, and they mirror the absence of contrasting views and engaged debate. The books, even the best of them, add to the sensations that nothing much is being said and that what is being said is boring. No twentysomething will stumble onto these and be aroused to political action. But then, the same could be said for today’s political speeches, political advertising and most of its televised debates. These books offer a distillation of all that is troubling about contemporary presidential politics and should be read for that reason; but for that reason, they will not be.