Over the Christmas holiday I read the book Inside Obama’s Brain by Sasha Abramsky, journalist and Senior Fellow at Demos. The book is a beautifully crafted work that examines the charismatic draw of President Obama by exploring the experiences and insights from dozens of people who have worked alongside the President throughout his career. Abramsky masterfully articulates what qualities draw us to Obama, and how Obama honed those qualities in preparation for his ascent to the Presidency. The book intertwines President Obama’s personal history with his professional accomplishments in a way that makes the book impossible to put down until readers have absorbed every last word of Abramsky’s prose. I never wanted this book to end.
I had the great fortune to speak with Sasha Abramsky last week:
Christa – How did you develop the idea for this book?
Sasha – I got the assignment right after the election. It fell into my lap. I had just finished writing Breadline USA, a retrospective on poverty in America, and wasn’t sure what my next project would be. My agent called me and said, “I hope you're sitting down. Penguin wants you to write a book entitled Inside Obama’s Brain” as part of their series.”
Christa – What was the process with Penguin like?
Sasha – The project was on a short time line. I got the assignment in December of 2008 and delivered a finished product by June 2009. I worked round the clock for those 6 months. They gave me as much support as I needed, along with a tremendous amount of latitude and freedom.
Christa – You didn’t actually speak to President Obama for this book and yet you have developed some very rich insights by speaking to people who are very close to him. How did you get those contacts to open up?
Sasha – President Obama runs in a world that I can understand. I had easy entry points into his peripheral circle because of my work with think tanks and law firms that had 2 to 3 degrees of separation from the President. Those contacts then allowed me to gain access to people even closer to him.
Christa – How did you develop the idea to learn about President Obama by talking to people around him?
Sasha – I enjoyed Gay Talese’s profile of Frank Sinatra. He didn’t get the opportunity to speak with Sinatra directly so he constructed what he called a "write-around”, speaking to many people about Sinatra but not to Sinatra himself. It worked so well that I decided to try that method with this book.
Christa – The subject of this book is a formidable assignment. Did it scare you when you first began?
Sasha – Absolutely! It was a very scary assignment. If I got this wrong, I had a huge audience that I would be short-changing. But if I got this right, what a joy it would be! Obama was at the top of my list of subjects to write about. He’s the most fascinating contemporary political figure.
Christa – What do you hope readers take away from the book?
Sasha – 3 things:
- A more in-depth understanding of the complexity of the political movement around Obama;
- The central role of community organizing in Obama’s life and methodology;
- The depth of President Obama’s intellectual agility.
He's a holistic thinker, and that thinking is developing into a new kind of political paradigm that he is ushering in.
Christa – What surprised you most about President Obama while you wrote this book?
Sasha – He’s very ambitious and believes that he is a man of destiny. Obama is absolutely convinced of that. The best analogy of this type of thinking that I can find is Marilyn Monroe. She was the quintessential "It Girl". Yes she was beautiful and charming, but she was more than that. She was a person who was greater than the sum of her parts. Obama is too. He has an aura about him that is hard to put your finger on when just considering the different aspects of his personality and history.
Also, he’s a sportsman and he approaches politics like a seasoned athlete. He knows he’s really good at the game. Like Andre Agassi, like the Williams sisters. They may have a bad game or a bad season, and then they can come back and blow away the competition. Obama is the same way. He’s very skilled. A great analytical mind. He’s a quick learner so he can rectify his mistakes very fast.
Christa – I found it inspiring that he could continually turn down lucrative job offers because they didn’t fit into his plan for his life.
Sasha - Money was not a primary concern for him, though he certainly had hefty debts from law school. There was a much easier road for him; he could have done anything he wanted out of Harvard. Clerked for the Supreme Court, worked for a top law firm with a very generous financial package. Instead, he went to a small civil rights law firm in Chicago for $30K / year, and threw himself into the work. He always did exactly what he wanted to do.
Christa – He has an extraordinary ability to takes calculated risks and turns even the most improbable odds to his favor.
Sasha – He doesn’t take risks for the sake of risk. He carefully thinks through all of the different angles and plays out scenarios far into the future. His risk-taking becomes an endearing quality because he carefully balances the odds well, making solid long-term strategic decisions.
Christa – This book has something for everyone. It paints President Obama as an every-man who speaks to a wide variety of readers. What was that your intention when writing the book or was that a happy accident?
Sasha – It was certainly a happy accident. And it’s due in large part to Obama’s personality. He speaks to people in a very authentic way and has a very wide array of interests and talents. He has something that everyone can relate to.
Obama talks about his “improbable journey” – a story that speaks to what America is or what he believes it should be. He has a deep understanding of his unique story and uses it to connect to a wide audience. He reads the needs of the moment very well. His outsider status and his political speaking skills make him an ideal candidate.
He believed that the moment was right for him in 2008 and he needed to act, despite all odds. Everyone needs a bit of luck. Obama is someone who recognizes when he has a lucky break and uses it well.
My thanks to Christy D’Agostini at Penguin for arranging this interview. Inside Obama’s Brain is available at all major bookstores and on Amazon.com.
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