Mike's Election Guide 2008

Michael Moore had a clever idea: write a sweeping endorsement of a horde of liberal politicians running in 2008. The majority of these candidates won their elections, and now we're all paying the price. ( )

I'm a Moore fan, so I enjoyed this. I think he offers a lot of innovative ideas for addressing some of our problems. Unfortunately, he has gotten bigger than his work in recent years and much of what he has to say gets lost in the hype. ( )

Comical, an eye opener about the 2008 Presidential Elections and the Democratic and Republican Parties. Questions that you wanted to ask but felt that they were not necessarly smart questions were explained in a a comical way, to help people understand the elections and its process. ( )

I loved reading this, even though I was often filled with a sense of dread and worry. Just listen to the title of the second chapter: "How to Elect John McCain... or, How Many Democrats Does It Take to Lose the Most Winnable Presidential Election in American History?" Hopefully, that's not how things go, but Moore puts it out there. "Ask Mike!" is another chapter, where people ask such hard-hitting questions as "which presidential candidate do I want to have a beer with?" and "if I have to move north of the border after the next presidential election because McCain has won, what do I need to know about Canada and Canadians?", which is something I've always wanted to know. You'll also get proposals on how to fix our broken elections, what to do once the election is over, and a handy candidate guide for several senate and the house seats. And if you hate Michael Moore, he's provided you with a chapter of lines taken out of context for you to use when telling people how awful you think the book is. Generous!

The book was funny, informative, and thought-provoking. It will make you want to go out and talk to people, and not just about the election. I've been going on about Social Security, health care, and the evils of high fructose corn syrup. You learn about the history of the Pledge of Allegiance, why our election is on a Tuesday and why it SHOULD be on a Saturday or Sunday, why the American people actually pay MORE taxes than the French and get so much less for it, and how wells could help America's image. If you love the Daily Show or Corbert Report, this is like one long episode in print form. Yes!

Okay, so I highly recommend this book. Go buy it or check it out from you library! Go... now! ( )

With the Bush presidency coming to an end and the Obama-McCain campaigns ready to kick into overdrive, American political satire is in no danger of dying out. Although two new releases -- Michael Moore's Mike's Election Guide 2008 and Nathaniel Whitten's The Do-It-Yourself Constitutional Amendment Kit -- have different aims, they share a trait not always seen in political humor. Both start off as straightforward lampoons. Both conclude, not necessarily successfully, with equally straightforward attempts to educate and advocate.

Mike's Election Guide 2008 is clearly the most partisan. Still, it will undoubtedly be the more popular and best selling, thanks in part to Moore's name recognition and print and documentary successes. Issued in trade paperback just weeks after Moore wrote the introduction and in time for the fall elections, the book slides gradually from Moore's responses to "man in the street" questions to the book's longest chapter -- a "handy candidate guide" to 42 Senate and House races he believes the Democrats can win. As such, the book is both humor as advocacy and outright advocacy. And therein may lie the problem.

Balance of review here.