This weekend I watched Hillary Clinton bow out of the presidential race, the person I had rooted for so long has finally clinched the democratic nomination! All due respect to Senator Clinton, she would have made a wonderful president and I particularly liked her farewell remarks- to paraphrase her- the glass ceiling for women presidential candidate did not break but it now has 18 million cracks ( referring to the 18 million or so people who voted for her in the primaries). Here’s a transcript of her speech which she gave in Washington DC on June 7, 2008. coming back to Barack Obama, I read this book called “Audacity of Hope‘ authored by him. Barack Obama is a self described hopemongerer ( I think we need to add this word to the dictionary if it is not already there given the publicity it has gotten!). In this book he gives practical advice on what an individual can do to make a difference. I found the chapter 4 on politics particularly interesting. He openly talks about campaign financing and how expensive it is in the Illinois media market (and by extension rest of the country) and how it is almost impossible to run a campaign unless you have deep pockets. He talks about the cold calls he had to make to raise funds and the disappointments one goes through in the process. As you read this you realize nothing is easy in this world, even great people like Barack Obama had disappointments, doubts, insecurity..not that infallible after all and that is kind of reassuring in the sense that disappointments are a natural process of getting ahead, we are not alone in this. What also struck me was the openness with which he writes about fund-raising, he brings out the contradiction of the current political system pretty clearly. On one hand you have to represent the poor and the middle class to get their votes and on the other hand if you do not accept contributions form the rich people like law firm partners, investment bankers, hedge fund managers, you are not going to go anywhere in the campaign. He says the more senior the senator is, chances are even more that he is deeply connected with rich people to finance their perpetual campaigns. A reality in present day America, so “matter-of-factly” written by Barack! I love this book, but particularly liked chapter 4. Read this book if you want to get some insights into this phenomenon which is called Barack Obama!

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This weekend I watched Hillary Clinton bow out of the presidential race, the person I had rooted for so long has finally clinched the democratic nomination! All due respect to Senator Clinton, she would have made a wonderful president and I particularly liked her farewell remarks- to paraphrase her- the glass ceiling for women presidential candidate did not break but it now has 18 million cracks ( referring to the 18 million or so people who voted for her in the primaries). Here’s a transcript of her speech which she gave in Washington DC on June 7, 2008. coming back to Barack Obama, I read this book called “Audacity of Hope‘ authored by him. Barack Obama is a self described hopemongerer ( I think we need to add this word to the dictionary if it is not already there given the publicity it has gotten!). In this book he gives practical advice on what an individual can do to make a difference. I found the chapter 4 on politics particularly interesting. He openly talks about campaign financing and how expensive it is in the Illinois media market (and by extension rest of the country) and how it is almost impossible to run a campaign unless you have deep pockets. He talks about the cold calls he had to make to raise funds and the disappointments one goes through in the process. As you read this you realize nothing is easy in this world, even great people like Barack Obama had disappointments, doubts, insecurity..not that infallible after all and that is kind of reassuring in the sense that disappointments are a natural process of getting ahead, we are not alone in this. What also struck me was the openness with which he writes about fund-raising, he brings out the contradiction of the current political system pretty clearly. On one hand you have to represent the poor and the middle class to get their votes and on the other hand if you do not accept contributions form the rich people like law firm partners, investment bankers, hedge fund managers, you are not going to go anywhere in the campaign. He says the more senior the senator is, chances are even more that he is deeply connected with rich people to finance their perpetual campaigns. A reality in present day America, so “matter-of-factly” written by Barack! I love this book, but particularly liked chapter 4. Read this book if you want to get some insights into this phenomenon which is called Barack Obama!