Rating: 
Summary: As close to a text on political consulting as you will find.
Review: ...Lee Atwater was and is my hero, he was the ne plus ultra of the business that is at the center of my soul, and I personaly saw the difference between the Lee Atwater run Bush campaign and a non Atwater Bush campaign. Lee you will never be more missed than you where in 1992.This book captures the good and the bad of Lee Atwater. The wink and the smile that most of the press missed shines through these pages. The sheer brilliance that propelled him to the top as well as the deamons who chased him there are made known. Most of all it explains that Lee was not the racist that Democrats made him out to be, a campaign his cancer left him unable to finish. This text lays out the strategies and thoughts that made Lee the success that we was. I is a text on how tho plan and win campaigns. It is a text about never ever giving up and the use of grit as an instrument of victory.
Rating:
Summary: Best political book I've ever read!
Review: As one active in politics, I've read many a political book, but have never read one that taught me so much and touched my emotions so much as well. I found myself laughing outloud at certain parts, and fighting back tears in others. Phenomenally written.
Rating:
Summary: Brady captures the true excitement of politics.
Review: Atwater was pretty much a moral scumbag, but the father of politics as we know it today. He did it his way and for that he is a hero. Brady tells the truth about the man and his life. Reading, you feel like a part of the action. It's a great book, but don't pick it up unless you're comfortable being obsessed with politics for the rest of your life!
Rating: 
Summary: A very revealing bio on the baddest boy in Washington!
Review: Book was given to me by Mel Ochoa. Lee Atwater, Bush's 1988 campaign manager who died at the height of his power at 41, was really INTENSE. That's the best word to describe him. He was also a real bad boy and not someone to be admired. He did not care about family, political issues, people, ideas. He only cared about winning and conquest. This is a very revealing biography on the baddest boy in Washington.
Rating:
Summary: A very revealing bio on the baddest boy in Washington!
Review: Book was given to me by Mel Ochoa. Lee Atwater, Bush's 1988 campaign manager who died at the height of his power at 41, was really INTENSE. That's the best word to describe him. He was also a real bad boy and not someone to be admired. He did not care about family, political issues, people, ideas. He only cared about winning and conquest. This is a very revealing biography on the baddest boy in Washington.
Rating: 
Summary: Starting to Debunk the Myths...
Review: I read Bad Boy with great anticipation and came away with mixed feelings. "If only we had another Lee Atwater" is a sentiment that resonates with today's too-often clutzy, tone-deaf GOP. But the Lee Atwater presented in Brady's comes off less as the strategic Messiah lionized in Republican circles and more like a go-getting prankster. The truth is probably somewhere in between. Typically, Brady obsesses over the Willie Horton episode, even though he does dislodge the pervasive myth that Atwater was somehow the prime mover behind this over-hyped episode. Still, these pages would have worked better as a more detailed account of the strategy behind the '88 campaign. (That's why I bought the book -- not to read more re-hashing of the Horton claptrap.) After enjoyable and vivid accounts of Atwater's early South Carolina campaigns, Bad Boy starts to disappoint and doesn't shed much more light on the politics of the 1980s and beyond. Atwater may be called the master of negative politics, but after watching the latest episode in Florida and recalling the impeachment ordeal, I doubt that this is what will distinguish him in the pantheon of political masterminds in years to come. Atwater's legacy will be that of a strategist who had a unique sense of what was really going on in his generation, and one of the first to recognize the current transformation of politics from a battle between left and right to contest between libertarian-minded thinkers who relish progress and freedom and traditional populists who want to control it.
Rating:
Summary: Starting to Debunk the Myths...
Review: I read Bad Boy with great anticipation and came away with mixed feelings. "If only we had another Lee Atwater" is a sentiment that resonates with today's too-often clutzy, tone-deaf GOP. But the Lee Atwater presented in Brady's comes off less as the strategic Messiah lionized in Republican circles and more like a go-getting prankster. The truth is probably somewhere in between. Typically, Brady obsesses over the Willie Horton episode, even though he does dislodge the pervasive myth that Atwater was somehow the prime mover behind this over-hyped episode. Still, these pages would have worked better as a more detailed account of the strategy behind the '88 campaign. (That's why I bought the book -- not to read more re-hashing of the Horton claptrap.) After enjoyable and vivid accounts of Atwater's early South Carolina campaigns, Bad Boy starts to disappoint and doesn't shed much more light on the politics of the 1980s and beyond. Atwater may be called the master of negative politics, but after watching the latest episode in Florida and recalling the impeachment ordeal, I doubt that this is what will distinguish him in the pantheon of political masterminds in years to come. Atwater's legacy will be that of a strategist who had a unique sense of what was really going on in his generation, and one of the first to recognize the current transformation of politics from a battle between left and right to contest between libertarian-minded thinkers who relish progress and freedom and traditional populists who want to control it.
Rating:
Summary: Brady captures the true excitement of politics.
Review: I read this for several reasons. I worked with Lee, and virtualy every person named in the book. It was a time in my life I'll never forget. Lee might not realize it , but he did fulfill his dream. He taught me, and so many others like me, when he didn't know it. It was a privilidge to have been one of his students. Now to the book. I never knew that one of my photos was placed in the casket by Sally. I took the christmas card picture mentioned on page xix. That is an honor. Lee had me photograph every party, mixer, event, and many trips. We even played guitar after hours occasionally. As an employee of both the RNC and the NRCC, my interaction was close and personal. Everyone who is on the course to become politically active, behind or in front of the cameras/podiums/candidates, should read this book and learn from this book. However, they should note the following: on page 237, Dick Cheney was the Representative from Wyoming, not Colorado. How do I know? I did his successor's (Craig Thomas, now a U.S. Senator) media, and was there when Craig was selected to run. And, on page 245, Ed Rollins is called the Deputy Chairman of the Republican National Congressional Committee. Wrong, it was the National Republican Congressioanl Committee. And, he was Chairman. Nitpicking? No. Lee would want information to be accurate. NSR (no spin required)
Rating:
Summary: Sobering portrait of a man, and his world
Review: I read this for several reasons. I worked with Lee, and virtualy every person named in the book. It was a time in my life I'll never forget. Lee might not realize it , but he did fulfill his dream. He taught me, and so many others like me, when he didn't know it. It was a privilidge to have been one of his students. Now to the book. I never knew that one of my photos was placed in the casket by Sally. I took the christmas card picture mentioned on page xix. That is an honor. Lee had me photograph every party, mixer, event, and many trips. We even played guitar after hours occasionally. As an employee of both the RNC and the NRCC, my interaction was close and personal. Everyone who is on the course to become politically active, behind or in front of the cameras/podiums/candidates, should read this book and learn from this book. However, they should note the following: on page 237, Dick Cheney was the Representative from Wyoming, not Colorado. How do I know? I did his successor's (Craig Thomas, now a U.S. Senator) media, and was there when Craig was selected to run. And, on page 245, Ed Rollins is called the Deputy Chairman of the Republican National Congressional Committee. Wrong, it was the National Republican Congressioanl Committee. And, he was Chairman. Nitpicking? No. Lee would want information to be accurate. NSR (no spin required)
Rating:
Summary: A winner; the definitive study of the late Lee Atwater
Review: Joseph Brady's biography is likely to be the definitive study of the late Lee Atwater. It is meticulously researched and engagingly written. His presentation is sympathetic to Atwater but not flattering. It is must reading for anyone interested in the national politics of contemporary America
| 
