Review: What Romney Lacked in Style He Made up in Denial
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 19, 2012
Yes, I know that's not original."The End of the Line" is the fourth and last E-book on the 2012 campaign from Politico.  Authors Glenn Thrush and Jonathan Martin bring us through the dramatic conclusion of the campaign:  the two conventions, preps for and results of the four debates, the desperate last-gasp ads, and election night.  I did not read Politico every single day but I did read it most of the workweek, so there was enough new material in here to hold my interest.  And there were a lot of after-action inteviews (from both sides), so this mini-book -- which you can get through in two hours easily -- did have much material that will be new even for daily readers.  Obama supporters will be sighing with relief; Romney backers will be gnashing their teeth.  I especially enjoyed the authors' discussion of the Obama campaign's long game; just like in 2008, it was clear which campaign had analyzed the conditions correctly and acted accordingly.I would have appreciated a bit more on election-night drama:  how the vice gradually tightened, the Rove meltdown, the dirge-like atmosphere on Fox, etc.  There is good reporting on the atmosphere inside the Obama camp as they waited, interminably, for Romney to concede.  So election-night drama is not totally missing.  But this is an E-book single, not an exhaustive history of the campaign, so something had to give.Bottom line:  Worth the price.  Even hard-core politicos will find something to think about here.