Obama's Challenge

America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency

By: Robert Kuttner

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The challenge: to be a transformative president.

Barack Obama approaches the presidency at a critical moment in American history, facing simultaneous crises of war, the environment, health care, but especially the economy. If he is able to rise to the moment, he could join the ranks of a small handful of previous presidents who have been truly transformative, succeeding in fundamentally changing our economy, society, and democracy for the better.

But this will require imaginative and decisive action as Obama takes office, action bolder than he has promised during his campaign, and will be all the more difficult given the undertow of conventional wisdom in Washington and on Wall Street that resists fundamental change.

Decades of regressive politics and political gridlock have left America in its most precarious situation since the onset of the Great Depression. The collapse of the housing bubble continues, as does the financial meltdown it triggered; a revival of 1970s-style stagflation threatens; incomes continue to lag behind inflation; our household and international debts pile higher; disastrous climate change looms; energy and food prices continue their escalation; and the ranks of un- and under-insured Americans are growing as the health-insurance system unravels.

Solutions to our multiple challenges do exist, but they won't be found in overly cautious or expedient quick fixes. With his exceptional skill at appealing to our better angels, Barack Obama could be the right leader at the right time to re-awaken America to the renewed promise of shared prosperity, coupled with responsibility towards future generations and the international community with whom we share the Earth. Invoking America's greatest leaders, Robert Kuttner explains how Obama must be a transformative president - or a failed one.

©2008 Robert Kuttner (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Obama's Challenge is the fruit of Bob Kuttner's lifetime of engagé reporting, analysis, and advocacy... it is riveting, brilliant, and persuasive. (Hendrik Hertzberg, from his New Yorker blog)
"Bob Kuttner pulls off the all-but-impossible...articulating the steps that can make Barack Obama a great president." (John Sweeney, AFL-CIO President)
"Robert Kuttner has incisively captured the political moment....[H]e lays out the hurdles facing an Obama presidency and challenges him to seize the moment and achieve greatness by redeeming the promise of America." (Arianna Huffington)