January 11, 2016
Rall’s illustrated work, in the same format as his acclaimed Snowden, is an illuminating, clear-headed, straight-shooting argument on why American voters should support and elect Senator Bernie Sanders to president. The first few chapters are an enlightening mini-course in contemporary American government and economics, tracing the Democratic Party’s persistent movement to the right over the past several decades. Sanders, Rall argues, is the only candidate whose passions and commitments favor the American people rather than corporations or big government. Each page is half text and half illustration in Rall’s signature caricature style, a format that serves up a large amount of information at an easy-to-digest pace of one idea per page. Unlike the Snowden book, this could have a potential short shelf life if Sanders isn’t nominated or elected. But in the months leading up to the Democratic Convention, this is an essential survey and solid political ammunition for Sanders supporters, with appeal to politically minded readers. Agent: Sandy Dijkstra, Dijkstra Literary Agency
January 1, 2016
More than a campaign biography, this graphic narrative traces the decline and possible resurgence of liberalism within the Democratic Party. The candidate for the presidential nomination barely makes an appearance until more than a third of the book has passed, as the introductory sections offer an incisive analysis of just how far to the right the Democratic Party has drifted. Political cartoonist and war correspondent Rall (Snowden, 2015, etc.) asserts that the defeats of McGovern and Mondale, the one-term presidency of Carter in between, and the ineffectual candidacy of Dukakis all served to move the party away from its traditional liberal mandate toward the center. Sanders was no one's obvious choice to be the standard-bearer of a liberal uprising, not even the candidate's, but the times made him inevitable--at least according to this book. As the party no longer accommodated positions such as those in the Occupy movement and opponents to the Wall Street rescue, Sanders decided that if no other candidate would give voice to that constituency, he would. The latter half of the book traces his remarkable political rise, as he defeated a six-term incumbent to become mayor of Burlington, "one of the great upsets in Vermont political history," and went on to represent his state as a popular independent in both the House and the Senate. Rall's analysis is scathingly radical. He labels George W. Bush "the most radical right-wing Republican of the modern political era," dismisses Bill Clinton as a "DINO--Democrat in Name Only," and blasts "Obama's stormtroopers" for the violent dispersing of the nonviolent Occupy protestors. And Bernie? "If he was a fringe kook, he was a popular one" as a senator, and though this biography shows little confidence that Sanders will be nominated, let alone elected president, it demonstrates why he's been able to pose a greater challenge than anticipated. An effective, if unapologetically partisan, primer on a strong voice from the left to counter the Democrats' rightward shift.
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February 15, 2016
Rall is an outlier among cartoonists, an unabashed, outspoken leftist who draws with a blunt, unpolished style. That makes him more than suited to portray the life and convictions of his political analogue, Bernie Sanders, the outspoken maverick senator who has embarked on a surprisingly viable run for the presidency. The first third of the book recounts the Democratic Party's conservative lurch following the McGovern debacle of 1972 and its subsequent drift rightward. The recent rise of the Occupy movement and other signs of life on the left set the stage for Sanders' remarkable ascent. Rall then recounts Sanders' life, from his activist youth to his elections as Vermont mayor, then U.S. representative, then U.S. senator. Much space in the text-heavy biographical section is devoted to verbatim quotes voicing Sanders' views (taken in part from an interview with Rall). The straightforward format consists of heavy blocks of didactic text accompanied by Rall's distinctively quirky drawings. The book's shelf-life is likely to expire once Sanders' quixotic campaign does, but until then, expect demand from Bernie's loyal backers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)