How will people speak of Barack Obama in two hundred years? Regardless of what else happens from now until the end of his life, the historic primaries and general election of 2008 will always be an important chapter of both his life and our country's history. Down the road, people will look to our contemporary's recollections of the facts to understand what happened, and why. Although this book will offer much valuable information, it will always be a one-sided account of these events.

Renegade definitely has its moments. It gives great insight into how carefully the decision to run was taken, and has unique insider accounts of the most talked about moments of the campaign: the Wright controversy, the conflicts with the Clintons, the VP selection, the transition, Palin, the financial collapse, and much more.

Where the book was strongest to me was when it describes what it's like to run a presidential bid, just how demanding and almost inhuman it is. One particularly interesting bit describes how Obama wrote his famous speech on race in Americe, which the candidate wrote himself on the two nights before the speech:

"The next night, he took Favreau's outline and started writing after he put his daughters to bed. By three in the morning, he had finished half the speech. Five hours later, he was en route to Pennsylvania for a full day of campaign events.. At 10:00 p.m. on Monday night, he retired to his hotel room to write the second half of the speech that he would deliver the next morning. By 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday, he had e-mailed the speech to his senior staff."

What is unfortunate is that these factual accounts of the campaign constitute maybe half of the book. The other half seems like a puff piece aimed at justifying Obama policies during the campaign. There is a good Amazon review titled "What do you call cheerleading after the game is over?" that echoes much of how I feel about the author's partisanship. Politico ran a piece on the book before it was published where it explains how Wolffe never covered any of the McCain campaign. He became a close friend of the candidate, even being admitted into the close-knit circle of people Obama played Basketball with. The idea of the book itself was actually pitched by Obama, promising the journalist the access he would need to write it. As Wolffe himself says in the afterword:

"publishers want partisan screeds nowadays. They don't want reporting."

Indeed, and that is exactly what the author has given his publishers.

One thing I was hoping to find in the book was insights into how the campaign managed to raise almost three quarters of a billion dollars. What did the then-candidate have to promise, and to whom, to get such incredible contributions? The notion that he raised so much from small online donation is clearly debunked by Wolffe who shows that first came the big sums from wealthy donors. The grassroots campaign in Iowa required very large amounts of money, way before the campaign gained the popularity that it did by the time the primaries were over. Although Obama may have broken some of the rules of presidential campaigns, I very much doubt that he managed to alter the fundamental rule that in these high circles of power, nothing is free. Nothing is given.

I give the book a 3 out of 5, with great inside accounts of the campaign, but ultimately partisan enough so that I truly wonder how Richard Wolffe can call himself a Journalist.