About the book
Ed Rendell argues that American leaders seldom ask the public for sacrifice to spare themselves, and that job security has become their main concern. In his account, most politicians and officials look no further than the next election, sometimes only to the next press conference, while Americans at large rarely shrink from hard work and sacrifice for a better future. Drawing on stories from his rise in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and national politics, Rendell contends that most hard choices feel hard only because polls clash with principles, and that voters must make clear that the right choices are what win elections. Rendell once led the Democratic National Committee and was a senior political analyst for MSNBC when the book came out.
Bill Gates called it one of the shorter, fun reads of his summer, a book as colorful as Rendell himself.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Bill Gates (CEO/Microsoft)
One of the shorter, fun books I read this summer is A Nation of Wusses: How America’s Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great. It’s by Ed Rendell, who was district attorney, mayor of Philadelphia and then two-term governor of Pennsylvania. If you’ve heard him speak or seen him on TV, you know he’s a colorful and outspoken observer of political life in the U.S. No surprise, then, that this book is colorful too,with lots of great stories. His theme is that leaders shouldn’t just tell people what they want to hear. But because politics has become so intensely partisan, too often our political leaders seem to be afraid to tell us the truth and to actually lead us in making the hard choices we need to face up to, on issues like education reform and the federal deficit. As a mayor and governor, Rendell faced up to some very messed-up budget situations and made some smart trade-offs. I thought his point of view was really refreshing. He makes a good point about how politics has changed in ways that make it harder for leaders to emerge and to truly lead.
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