In "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream," Senator Barack Obama offers a message of hope to the cynics that would claim that our country is hopelessly divided and politics has devolved into a power game of little interest to ordinary Americans. Senator Obama believes there are, in fact, ordinary Americans out there that do care about our country, are engaged in politics, and can manage to find common ground with neighbors and friends whose politics or values they may disagree with. I admit, I do not share Senator Obama’s optimism. I am one of those cynics who believes Americans are divided, politics is a game, and it is best to simply avoid people whose politics I don’t agree with. While I may not paint my face blue or red on Election Night, I do keep track of the score, and I don’t care if my side engages in cheap shots or late hits to win; I just hope they do win, even if I remain skeptical that they can actually make a difference. In his book, Senator Obama tries to convince readers like me that there is, in fact, a "new kind of politics" that we can engage in to build upon the "shared understandings that pull us together as Americans."

While Senator Obama discusses a "new kind of politics," the most interesting part of his book discusses politics, as it exists today, from his perch in the Senate, specifically the pervasive roles of money and the media. As a candidate for Senator, one of Obama’s major tasks was fund-raising, making cold-calls to the few Americans who can afford to write a $2,000 check to a politician. As a result, his primary interactions were limited to the top one percent of Americans, placing him "outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population," or the people he actually entered public life to serve. In addition, Senator Obama laments his inability to directly reach his constituents. If he were to hold 39 town hall meetings a year (as he did his first year in the Senate), Senator Obama would be able to reach maybe 100,000 constituents in a six-year Senate term, whereas a three-minute story on the lowest rated news program in Chicago would reach 200,000 people, making him "entirely dependent on the media" to reach his constituents. Yet, as Senator Obama explains, instead of using its power to present politicians to the people they are supposed to serve, the media instead seems to use its power to disengage Americans from politics altogether. He presents the example of a story with the White House making debt projections. Because the media doesn’t have the time or interest to do its own research, it will typically present the opinion of a Republican analyst that the Republican projections are accurate, the countering opinion of a Democratic analyst that the projections are inaccurate, and no independent analyst to tell the true story or provide a conclusion. Instead of being about the debt projections, the story becomes about the same old tired plot of Republicans and Democrats fighting again, boring readers and prompting them to "turn to the sports page, where the story line is less predictable and the box score tells you who won."

As Senator Obama presents it, the idea of a "new kind of politics" discourages this story line, instead focusing on narrowing differences and engaging in true dialogue and conversation with one another in order to find common ground. In an example of what is wrong with politics now, Senator Obama provides an interesting story of a breakfast meeting with President Bush, where he had noted Bush’s easy manner – that is, until Bush began his political speech, when "it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a speech," and Bush’s "easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty," as he spelled out his political agenda in an agitated, rapid tone discouraging any interruption or opposing viewpoint. In demonstrating his contrast to President Bush, Senator Obama structures his political discussions as conversations, where he always presents both sides of each issue – whether the topic be energy, race, or welfare – and inevitably concludes that each side has relevant points. In fact, Senator Obama seems to take pains to present a "Republican" point of view, virtually ignoring issues Democrats may consider important, such as education and health care, which get a total of seven pages between them, and focusing on traditionally Republican areas, such as family, values, and faith. This, Senator Obama states, is the "guidepost for his politics": his mother’s simple principle, "How would that make you feel?" While he believes this guidepost serves him well, allowing him to gain insight into the other side’s perspective, it is a philosophy he says everyone would benefit from, to note the suffering of others and put ourselves in their position.

Ultimately, this is the core behind Senator Obama’s philosophy – that, if we fail to help others, we diminish ourselves. In meeting with his constituents, Obama has found power in the American spirit, of people who have suffered and yet continue to work hard to fulfill their dreams. In his experiences growing up in Indonesia and traveling to his father’s native land of Kenya, Senator Obama has seen first-hand the effect of countries where individuals do not control their own fate, but must instead rely on the self-restraint of the military or on corrupt bureaucrats. As a result, he has developed a deep appreciation for the freedom we are afforded as Americans and the hope that, through hard work, we can accomplish our dreams. It is this audacity to hope, he says, that binds us together as one people, as Americans. This shared sense of community is what drives his idea of a "new kind of politics," based on the premise that we have more similarities than differences, and that we can build on "those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans."

However, Obama concedes that, just because he believes there can be a new kind of politics, doesn’t mean he knows how to do accomplish it, because he admits, he doesn’t. He acknowledges that his book is more of a discussion than a manifesto and that his treatment of the issues is "often partial and incomplete." In fact, his discussion of the actual issues often seems simplistic, contradictory, and sometimes uninformed. Admittedly, I had more hope for Senator Obama as a political candidate before I read this book than I do now, just because he didn’t focus on the issues I would have liked to hear about, didn't provide substantive arguments, or didn’t present ideas I totally agreed with. Even more than his ideas on specific issues, though, I would have liked to hear how he plans to re-engage the American people: for example, does he have ideas about how to rid government of special interests and get more Americans involved in the process through a public funding system or a national holiday on Election Day? If politics is meant to be a discussion between two empathetic parties, how does he plan to engage ordinary Americans in that discussion? In the end, though, while Obama doesn’t go as far as he could in spelling out how he will re-engage Americans in our democracy, he lays the foundation for readers to make some of these conclusions for themselves, particularly in his narrative on race. In describing the problem of poverty among African-Americans, which has become a "permanent fixture in American popular culture," one which we as Americans take for granted, and "not for which we are culpable," Senator Obama inadvertently points to the impact a minority president could have. If the audacity of hope means that we are all bound together as Americans, then the implication of electing a minority President is clear: we are finally allowing new voices into the political discussion. If, in fact, we as a country do elect Senator Obama as president, then maybe, just maybe, I will join him and have the audacity to hope for the future of this country again.