Road to the White House may be lined with books
A. Goldfarb

Can you write your way into the White House? A number of prospective 2008 presidential candidates are betting that the free publicity that comes with the release of a book can’t hurt.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat from New York, will re-release her book, It Takes a Village, 10 years after she published the book as first lady. She will do a limited amount of media promotion in the for the book, in which Clinton argues that collective effort is needed to protect and defend children. In a newly written introduction, Clinton "reflects on how our village has changed over the last decade—from the impact of the Internet to new research in early child development and education," according to her publisher, Simon & Schuster. Clinton also discusses such issues as security, the environment and the national debt.

Other prospective Democratic candidates have been on aggressive book-publishing schedules. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has been actively promoting his new book, The Audacity of Hope. Former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards has traveled to early primary states to sell his new tome, Home.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona., and his chief of staff, Mark Salter, will release their fifth book in August, according to the National Journal Web log. The book, tentatively titled Hard Call, will explore historic decisions in politics, history, science and other endeavors. According to the Web log, McCain and Salter have identified six key principles that separate success and failure: awareness, timing, confidence, foresight, humility and inspiration.

Al Gore, who has kept the door to a presidential run slightly ajar, next year will publish The Assault on Reason—an examination of how "the public arena has grown more hostile to reason." Gore is well known for promoting his candidacy through his causes. In 1992, as a vice presidential candidate, he published a cautionary tale on the environment, Earth in the Balance.

Tackling that subject area next will be Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, who is releasing a so-far-untitled book on the environment in March with his wife, Teresa. According to PublicAffairs, his publisher, the book describes the work of the senator and his wife on promoting the environment from the San Juan Basin to the South Bronx. In an author’s note, Kerry writes that "we are sliding dangerously backwards in almost every sector of environmental concern. ... We share a sense of urgency about the need to reinvigorate grassroots action which takes these concerns into the ballot box."

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, R, has no plans for a book in the next few years. Another possible GOP presidential hopeful, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, also has no book plans, though his post-Sept. 11 tome, Leadership, was a huge success.

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