Defying Gravitas: Collecting Books By Presidential Wannabes

A book collection can encompass any subject. Surely one could be built- and at little cost!- around the campaign memoirs of people what want, and have wanted, to become the American President.

Every four years brings another batch. A trip to 2008 in Salon's Wayback Machine underscores how American presidential politics is twain between the flashes in the pan and those who will only be stopped from running by death. That year, the campaign indestructibles included Mitt Romney (first of two and a half bids); Hillary Clinton; Mike Huckabee (1 of 2); John McCain (2 of 2), and the only victor, Barack Obama (2 for 2).

More interesting, from a collecting standpoint, are the flameouts: Tom Tancredo; Ron Paul (head of another presidential dynastic family); Mike Gravel (who sought the Democratic and Libertarian Party nods, and became head of KUSH, a marijuana distributor that's a subsidiary of Cannabis Sativa, another pot business run by former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson- who ran for President as a Republican and Libertarian in 2012, and is running for the latter again in '16- last year); Sam Brownback; Christopher Dodd, Bill Richardson; Fred Thompson; Dennis Kucinich, and John Edwards.

The 2016 campaign season is rife with possible candidates, and, therefore, books to promote themselves. As another blogger has noted, the current GOP Universe of the Mentioned (people who are running, are exploring running, are thinking about running, are being mentioned as possible candidates, and those whose egos so surmount reality that they have removed themselves from a contest in which only their wives and/or mistresses thought they had a chance: about sixty so far.

Which has led enterprising researchers to ask,

If you were forced to read one book written by a potential Republican Party presidential candidate, would it be by Dr. Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Rick Perry or Scott Walker?

While none of these books have garnered rave reviews and aren't likely to be particularly memorable, if you chose Dr. Ben Carson's One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future (co-written with his wife Cindy), you will have picked the book that thus far has out sold all the other books combined, and by a huge margin.

Bloomberg News' David Knowles recently pointed out that "The urge to make the leap from politician to author makes sense on a number of levels. Releasing a book can help introduce a regional politician to a national audience, laying the groundwork for a campaign. While the bulk of a first-time effort will be spent on biographical details and formative anecdotes, most eventually veer toward policy positions without actually committing their authors to specifics, giving readers a hint of how he or she might govern without chiseling a platform in stone."

In 1995, before he launched his campaign for a seat in the Illinois Senate, the then unknown Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance was published. In 2004, after Obama had won the U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Illinois, the book was re-published and was received favorably by numerous critics and writers: It "may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician," wrote Time columnist Joe Klein. The Guardian's Rob Woodard pointed out that the book "is easily the most honest, daring, and ambitious volume put out by a major US politician in the last 50 years." Michiko Kakutani, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times, described it as "the most evocative, lyrical and candid autobiography written by a future president."

A book, either written by a potential presidential contender – sometimes with the assistance of a credited co-writer or ghostwriter -- appears to be a pre-primary rite of passage; in part to put forward a candidate’s vision on critical issues, in part to signify gravitas, and, more often than not, to guarantee some national media attention.

Not all books written by politicians receive such lavish praise as Barack Obama’s Dreams, even if some of them go on to become bestsellers. Nevertheless, when a prominent politician with presidential ambitions releases a book – regardless of how readable or informative it might or might not be – a nationwide tour is virtually guaranteed and multiple radio and television talk show appearances are on the agenda.

Take the Republican Class of 2012: There was Mitt Romney’s 2011 book, No Apology: Believe in America; Texas Governor Rock Perry’s 2010 book, Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington; Rick Santorum resurfaced his 2005 book, It Takes a Family; In the Fall of 2011, Michelle Bachmann’s Core of Conviction: My Story, was published; 2011 also saw the publication of Herman Cain’s This is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House; and, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, who have written so many books that it’s difficult to discern which, if any, were aimed at increasing their chances at getting the GOP’s presidential nomination, dumped a few more on America’s bookstores.    

As we enter the early days of pre-presidential primary maneuvering, the book-publishing frenzy has already begun, as Michael Tomasky reminds us in his The New York Review of Books piece titled, “2016: The Republicans Write.”

Tomasky sizes up six books by six potential GOP candidates: American Dreams: Restoring Opportunity for Everyone by Marco Rubio; Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works by Rick Santorum;The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea by Paul Ryan (who apparently has taken himself out of the race);God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy (my favorite title) by Mike Huckabee; Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge by Scott Walker with Marc Thiessen; and, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future by Ben Carson with Cindy Carson, whose next book might be titled Prisons Turn People Gay.

Not mentioned by Tomasky is Rand and Ron Paul’s 2012 book titled Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused, and Imprisoned by the Feds, and Jeb Bush’s 2013 book, Immigration Wars: Forging An American Solution, co-authored with Clint Bolick.

Interestingly enough, it is Carson’s book , which has sold more than 350,000 copies since its release in May of last year, that is “by far the best selling author among [GOP potential candidates], according to numbers obtained from Nielsen Bookscan,” Jamie Weinstein, Senior Editor of The Daily Caller recently reported...

Weinstein also pointed out that Huckabee’s book has sold 53,000 copies since its January release, Scott Walker’s has sold a total of 21,000 copies in hardcover and paperback, Jeb Bush’s book has sold 6,000 copies, Marco Rubio’s 5,000 copies, and Rick Santorum’s book “has sold a paltry 4,000 copies.”

“So, do book sales actually tell us anything about the 2016 presidential race?,” Weinstein asked Larry Sabato, the head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Sabato told Weinstein that “It says Carson and Clinton made a lot more money than Bush and Rubio. And Carson has very committed backers that may well give him a higher proportion of the votes than some expect. But the GOP nomination? Highly unlikely.”

“50,000 spread over a nation means little,” he added. “5 million? Now we’re talking.”

Nevertheless, more books by potential GOP candidates are on the way: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Miracle of America is slated for publication in June, Carly Fiorina’s Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey is due out in May, and Rand Paul’s Taking A Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics To Unite America is also set to be released in May.

On the Democratic side, The Inevitability of the She-Clinton extends to book sales: her 2014 doorstop, Hard Choices, has sold 264,000 copies against a $14m advance. New York Governor Mario Cuomo's memoir, All Things Possible: Setbacks and Success in Politics and Life, sold 115 copies nationwide in its fourth week of release, according to Nielsen BookScan, which covers at least 85 percent of the print book. From a first printing of 200,000, Cuomo's book sold just under 1,000 copies in its first week, just over 500 in its second, 230 in its third and 115 in its fourth week last November.

This remarkable state of affairs may lead to a new definition of rarity: having a copy of a book someone actually bought retail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former academic, has a number of books under her belt, including several works on bankruptcy. Her 2014 memoir, A Fighting Chance,  is a hedge-those-bets campaign tome; it sold 65,000 copies the first three months after its release last April, and reached 72,000 sales in August 2014. Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley is shopping his memoir to publishers; he has also cranked up a blog, Letters to the People of Maryland, that's- in all but one post- a long series of victory laps celebrating his record, all posted the day he left office. Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb published a military memoir, I Heard My Country Calling, last year. Vice President Joe Biden has nothing announced, but there's still copies of his 2008 campaign book, Promises to Keep, out there. Somewhere.