The husband of Annie Schmidt, a 2006 Downingtown West High School alumna, has journeyed off the beaten path to gain a perspective of Republican politics in the high-stakes hunt to return one of their own to the Oval Office.
But to do so, McKay Coppins puts the presidential hopefuls in the crosshairs with his new book, “The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party’s Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House.”
Coppins tracks the campaign trail and highlights the backstory of leading Republican champions Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Don Trump, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and others as they tread carefully in an ever-shifting political frontier.
“Offering up one revealing, behind-the-scenes story after another, he covers their histories — going back decades — up through the present, when their political futures remain very much up in the air,” reviewer Jim Swearingen wrote for the Huffington Post.
“Each of these political hopefuls is striving to remake himself into the image of the next Republican prophet, one able to lead the GOP out of the wilderness of an eight-year presidential exile. … Along the way, these candidates all work tirelessly to redefine themselves as an acceptable option for the party base, a crucible that forces each of them to betray former principles, former positions and former allies.”
Toughest to negotiate is the delicate balance required to unify a diverse nation.
“It is axiomatic that politicians mold themselves to the public’s tastes. Candidate after candidate shows brief moments of candor, reflection and statesmanship in this book, only to jettison those nobler instincts when the hard right pitches an ideological fit,” the review explains.
In the end, the monumental challenge according to Coppins, is to fix Washington, D.C., without becoming part of it.
“All successful politicians ultimately acquire power, at which point they become responsible for whatever follows. Yet responsibility is anathema to the base. … In his classic analysis ‘Why Americans Hate Politics,’ E.J. Dionne warned, ‘A nation that hates politics will not long thrive as a democracy’ — a warning that feels all too relevant in this presidential election cycle.”
Read more of Sweringen’ take on Coppins’ book in the Huffington Post here.
