What It Takes The Way to the White House

It was in the 1988 election where Richard Ben Cramer wrote What It Takes, the all-time greatest political campaign book. And every election since then has been filled with these insider accounts.

Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes, which is the sort of the first, all of the inside the room, like glorification of strategists, like campaign trail books that are, you know, we now know about like Game Changers, all came from that book and it's an amazing book.

I had the giant Richard Ben Cramer book about the 1988 presidential election. That was my Bible.

the giant Richard Ben Cramer book about the 1988 presidential election, that was my Bible.

The single greatest piece of campaign journalism ever produced, this is every political journalist will tell you this, is Richard Ben Cramer's account of the 1988 presidential election. Okay. It's called What It Takes.

So it's What It Takes, which has just an amazing portrait of Joe Biden.

That in there he captured something that biden describes of himself where he calls it gaming it out meaning I can game out things that other people think I cannot do

You know, I have the ability to do like any good podcast. I have what it takes sitting right by my desk