Lucky
How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency
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Lucky
Narrated by:
Rob Shapiro
Buy Now for £16.99
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Narrated by:
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Rob Shapiro
About this listen
Almost no one thought Joe Biden could make it back to the White House—not Donald Trump, not the two dozen Democratic rivals who sought to take down a weak front-runner, not the mega-donors and key endorsers who feared he could not beat Bernie Sanders, not even Barack Obama. The story of Biden’s cathartic victory in the 2020 election is the story of a Democratic Party at odds with itself, torn between the single-minded goal of removing Donald Trump and the push for a bold progressive agenda that threatened to alienate as many voters as it drew.
In Lucky, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes use their unparalleled access to key players inside the Democratic and Republican campaigns to unfold how Biden’s nail-biting run for the presidency vexed his own party as much as it did Trump. Having premised his path on unlocking the Black vote in South Carolina, Biden nearly imploded before he got there after a relentless string of misfires left him freefalling in polls and nearly broke.
Allen and Parnes brilliantly detail the remarkable string of chance events that saved him, from the botched Iowa caucus tally that concealed his terrible result, to the pandemic lockdown that kept him off the stump, where he was often at his worst. More powerfully, Lucky unfolds the pitched struggle within Biden’s general election campaign to downplay the very issues that many Democrats believed would drive voters to the polls, especially in the wake of Trump’s response to nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd. Even Biden’s victory did not salve his party’s wounds; instead, it revealed a surprising, complicated portrait of American voters and crushed Democrats’ belief in the inevitability of a blue wave.
A thrilling masterpiece of political reporting, Lucky is essential reading for understanding the most important election in American history and the future that will come of it.
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Critic reviews
“[B]lunt, insidery talk is the lifeblood of Lucky, . . . a brisk and detailed account of the 2020 presidential race [with] memorable and telling insider moments.”—The Washington Post
“Fascinating book.”—Rev. Al Sharpton, president, National Action Network Inc., host of Politics Nation on MSNBC
“We are blessed once again in the modern era with great writing duos and our viewers are looking at one of them. This is the book. . . . You think you know the story until you read this.”—Brian Williams, MSBNC
“Lucky is nothing if not clear-eyed. . . . [The authors’] take on Biden is a prism and scorecard that gives added understanding to the seemingly never-ending war of 2020. It makes the silent parts of the conversation audible and reminds the reader the past is always with us.”—The Guardian
“Lucky is more than a journalistic ‘first draft of history.’ It is likely to endure as the definitive account of the Biden campaign. In addition to their fine craftsmanship and exquisite attention to detail, the authors keep their eye on the big picture of the 2020 elections. Biden was lucky in the primaries as the last person standing in a splintered field of candidates. He was lucky in the November election because of Trump’s botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the central challenge of his presidency. Failed presidents don’t get reelected. As demonstrated by my Keys to the White House prediction system that called Biden’s win in early August 2020, it is governing that counts for the party holding the White House.”—Alan Lichtman, author of The Case for Impeachment
“Fascinating book.”—Rev. Al Sharpton, president, National Action Network Inc., host of Politics Nation on MSNBC
“We are blessed once again in the modern era with great writing duos and our viewers are looking at one of them. This is the book. . . . You think you know the story until you read this.”—Brian Williams, MSBNC
“Lucky is nothing if not clear-eyed. . . . [The authors’] take on Biden is a prism and scorecard that gives added understanding to the seemingly never-ending war of 2020. It makes the silent parts of the conversation audible and reminds the reader the past is always with us.”—The Guardian
“Lucky is more than a journalistic ‘first draft of history.’ It is likely to endure as the definitive account of the Biden campaign. In addition to their fine craftsmanship and exquisite attention to detail, the authors keep their eye on the big picture of the 2020 elections. Biden was lucky in the primaries as the last person standing in a splintered field of candidates. He was lucky in the November election because of Trump’s botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the central challenge of his presidency. Failed presidents don’t get reelected. As demonstrated by my Keys to the White House prediction system that called Biden’s win in early August 2020, it is governing that counts for the party holding the White House.”—Alan Lichtman, author of The Case for Impeachment
Engaging but limited
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If not Biden, and the term damned by faint praise may as well have been coined by this book, then who? Pretty much everyone comes out looking a little sullied by the primaries, on the Democratic side, and the authors make clear early on their view that Trump is a danger to the republic. The implicit question is, how did it happen that Biden is the guy picked to fight him? What does he even stand for? The underlying assumption of the authors seems to be that the grey man Biden was needed because it took a centrist to unite the broadest possible layer of voters against Trump. Someone who was likeable, wouldn’t piss people off, a grown up, and the book drives home that this is who Biden is again and again, as he gets lucky break after lucky break. But it hardly scratches the deeply anti-democratic, anti-socialist layers of the Democratic Party’s leaders, who put enormous pressure on everyone and everything to fall in behind the safe centrist and stop Sanders. That anti-socialist drive is precisely what created the space for a Biden.
Another world was possible - no centrist but someone who could reach into Trump’s base of angry working class people and mobilise them against zero hour contracts, crap wages, non-existent benefits. The authors in their thoroughly dismissive tone miss this entirely. In that they are little different to those who recycled truisms about how Trump would never be the nominee, would never be President etc etc. Disappointing lack of reflection and insight from the authors. But a decent yarn nonetheless.
One damn thing after another
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puts you right in the heads of the main players.
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