Ebook: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies

From the bestselling author of The Promise, the thrilling story of one of the most momentous contests in American history, the Battle Royale between Obama and his enemies from the 2010 midterms through the 2013 inauguration.

The election of 2012 will be remembered as a hinge of history. With huge victories in the 2010 midterm elections the Republican Party had blocked President Obama at every turn and made plans to wrench the country sharply to the right. 2012 offered the GOP a clear shot at controlling all three branches of government and repealing much of the social contract dating back to the New Deal. Facing free-spending billionaires, Fox News, and a concerted effort in 19 states to tilt the election by suppressing Democratic votes, Obama repelled the assault and navigated the nation back to the center.

In The Center Holds, Jonathan Alter produces the first full account of America at the crossroads. With exclusive reporting and rare historical insight, he pierces the bubble of the White House and the presidential campaigns in a landmark election that marked the return of big money and the rise of big data. He tells the epic story of an embattled president fighting back with the first campaign of the Digital Age.

Alter relates the untold story behind Obamas highs and lows, from the raid on Osama bin Ladens compound to the frustration of the debt ceiling fiasco to his unexpected run-ins with black and Latino activists. There are fresh details about the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist, Roger Ailes, and the online haters who suffer from Obama Derangement Syndrome. Alter takes us inside Mitt Romney and Paul Ryans Boston campaign as well as Obamas disastrous preparation for the first debate. We meet Obamas analytics geeks working out of The Cave and the man who secretly videotaped Romneys infamous comments on the 47 percent.

The Center Holds will deepen our understanding of the Obama presidency, the stakes of the 2012 election, and the future of the country.

Review

Common-sense politics devolve into a season of craziness in this engrossing account of the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. Journalist Alter follows up his bestselling The Promise: President Obama, Year One with a savvy dissection of the 20102012 election cycle and related political dogfights, including budget and debt-ceiling showdowns, the Republican primary circus, and the Obama Derangement Syndrome infecting Tea Partiers and talk-radio hosts. At the center are rich portraits of the antagonists: Obama is seen as a cerebral antipolitician with no schmooze gene who hates back-slapping, slogan-spewing theatrics; Romney is portrayed as a well-meaning candidate forced to pander to the rabid Right, and unable to convince the middle class he is anything other than a calculating businessman trying to close a deal. Alters well-paced narrative delights in campaign folderol, but he also analyzes deeper currentsincluding state-level Republican voter-suppression efforts aimed at Democrats, and the immense Obama field operation that wedded digital modeling and social networks to old-fashioned door-to-door organizing in revolutionary new ways. He makes the horse race coherent by teasing out the class politics and demographic shifts driving it. Lucid, entertaining, and alive to the reality behind the posturing, Alters report reveals the high stakes and far-reaching import of the 2012 decision. (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

About the Author

Jonathan Alter is a columnist for Bloomberg View andan analystand contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He is aformer senior editor and columnist for Newsweek, where he worked twenty-eight years, writing morethan fifty cover stories. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other publications.He is the author ofThe Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDRs Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, both New York Times bestsellers.