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The Long Game

By: Mitch McConnell
Narrated by: Mitch McConnell
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Publisher's Summary

"I have learned that the story of a nation's success, and the success of each one of us, is a slow awakening to the timeless value of the long game."

In October 1984, a hard-charging Kentucky politician waited excitedly for President Ronald Reagan to arrive at a presidential rally in Louisville. In the midst of a tough Senate campaign, the young Republican hoped Reagan's endorsement would give a much-needed boost to his campaign. Alas, when Reagan finally stepped to the microphone, he smiled for the crowd and declared, "I'm happy to be here with my good friend, Mitch O'Donnell."

That was hardly Mitch McConnell's first setback - and far from his last. But as he learned while running his very first campaign for high school student body president, you don't have to be the most popular, most athletic, or even luckiest kid to win. You just need to run the best campaign. So he swallowed hard, put his head down, and kept going. Four weeks later he won his Senate seat, beginning a storied career that would eventually lead to his becoming the Senate majority leader.

The Long Game is the candid, behind-the-scenes memoir of a man famous for his discretion. He tells how his mother helped him beat polio by leading him through long, aching exercises every day for two years. He explains how his father taught him the importance of standing up to bullies, even if it meant taking the occasional punch. And he reveals what he really thinks about the rivalry between the Senate and the House; about the players and the stakes involved when a group of political opportunists tried to hijack the Tea Party movement; and about key figures such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Harry Reid. He tells the inside story of the battle against Obamacare and explains the real causes of the chronic gridlock, his ongoing efforts to restore the US Senate, and what ordinary citizens have a right to expect from Washington.

In today's atmosphere of impatience and instant gratification, McConnell still believes the founders knew best when they instituted a government with checks and balances. As he writes, "In the end, the goal isn't a perfectly running congressional machine or a party without blemish or inner turmoil. The goal is to allow the country to work out its differences freely and energetically, confident that the institutions the founders left us are capable of accommodating the disputes and disagreements that arise in a nation as big and diverse and open as ours."

©2016 Mitch McConnell (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"From Alabama country boy bedridden for two years with polio to Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate is a remarkable journey. Mitch McConnell tells this quintessentially American story with lucid prose and refreshing candor. A most valuable historical contribution to the politics of our time." (Charles Krauthammer, author of Things That Matter

"Mitch McConnell’s The Long Game is a warm, candid, and captivating story of a young boy who conquered polio, loved the Brooklyn Dodgers, and set his sights on becoming a ballplayer before finding his life’s calling in politics. The steady upward climb from high school president to office boy in the Senate mailroom, from county judge to majority leader, is told with insight, humor, and telling detail." (Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian) 

"With candor and a sure sense of history - both of the nation's and of the Senate - Mitch McConnell has written an engaging and compelling memoir of a life spent in the arena. Readers seeking to understand where we are, how we got here, and what might come next will find this book at once entertaining and essential." (Jon Meacham, author of Destiny and Power

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Great book by an great man

Have always admired his patience and this book was worth reading. As someone from centre right.

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Good, but too short

The reading and story are fine. However, for a memoir of a long political career, it felt like an overview. He could have used some more confidence in his story.

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