Barack Obama: In His Own Words

"Barack Obama: In His Own Words" is a 166 page book of quotations. Edited by Lisa Rogak the glossy soft cover little book tells us "The Candidate Speaks On Everything From Abortion To The Middle East". It is probably my nitpicking nature to suggest a better blurb might have been something along the lines of Senator Obama being a candidate for the Democratic nomination to run for President in 2008. His main focus is affordable Health Care, ending government corruption stemming from lobbyists, bipartisan politics as the Constitution was written to ensure the democracy would work, educating children, creating jobs through retraining workers, displaced through outsourcing, to work in bio-diesel fuel production.

Senator Obama, in his own words, is quite outspoken about following Brazil's lead in creating and using alternative fuels to lessen our country's dependency upon the diminishing resource: oil. He wants to eradicate poverty, which in turn will lessen crime. He wants to make college education affordable so today's youth will be able to compete with better educated children that are hired to do jobs the USA citizens, supposedly, are not able to do. I know technology workers who have trouble finding work, even though Microsoft fills the void with citizens from China.

The reason I mention these things is the essence of Obama might have been better expressed with a different front cover blurb. I did not learn all these things in "Barack Obama: In His Own Words", but many of the quotes will give a reader a clear idea of where he stands on issues that are troublesome to the average USA citizen, today. Ms. Rogak does provide a menu of 86 topics to choose from which cover everything that one might need if using the book as a reference source to write an article about Senator Obama.

A sample quote from the "On Campaign Finance Reform" section is:

"The whole issue of money in politics is one that I'm constantly struggling with, because my preference would be that we've got public financing of campaigns and nobody has to raise money whatsoever.", which is credited to "All Things Considered, October 19, 2006".

Each quote is referenced this way, but there is no bibliography included in the book. The quotations are taken from newspaper and magazine articles, podcasts, television interviews, speeches, his own book "Audacity of Hope", his campaign websites including the current one, barackobama.com.and even a campaign letter. Ms. Rogak is through. NBA basketball player, Charles Barkley, mentions in a You Tube video having interviewed Senator Obama "years ago" for a book he was writing. Ms. Rogak even includes a quote from Mr. Barkley's book: "Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man?" with "page 19".

The book also lacks an index at the back, so that, for instance I had to sift through the pages to find the quote from Barkley's book to verify the name. The earliest quote in the book is from 1995 and comes from "Crisis", a NAACP's magazine. The book also includes an Introduction and a brief, accurate biography of Senator Obama. It finishes up with a short Acknowledgments page and "About the Author". Editor, Lisa Rogak has published over 40 books as well as news and magazine articles. She is currently working on a biography of author Stephen King. The book did not include my favorite Barack Obama quotes:

"America we can do better than that." and "There is not a Liberal America and a Conservative America there is the U-nited States of America. There is not a black America and a white America, a Latino America, an Asian America there's the United States of America."

"Barack Obama: In His Own Words" was published by Carroll & Graf "An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc." with a back cover list price of $12.95 in 2007. My copy was borrowed from the local library, but is available online from your favorite booksellers. I would recommend the book to anyone who would like a handy reference guide to Senator Barack Obama quotes. It is obvious that much work went into collecting and organizing quotes, but I think it was hastily put together for quick publication.

"Meet Barack Obama", You Tube video