Losing Our Elections

Losing Our Elections by Jim Spurli­no was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. I have never run for office outside of the local level, though I have thought of doing so and I have taken training to do so. This author did run for Congress, John Boehner's seat when he resigned and he tells what it’s like to run for Congress as a first-time candidate. If you or someone you know is thinking about running for federal political office and you are not a multi-millionaire or billionaire, give this book a read before you pull the proverbial trigger. Money drives the running for office 'train" and that explains a lot of what is wrong with politicians over all.

4 Stars

An eye opening look at the process the day to day grind of running for congress.The author decided to take a chance and run and the lessons he learned the money that is needed is a real eye opener.Perfrct book for anyone considering running for office.#netgalley #losing our elections.

Interesting Memoir From A First Time Candidate. This is a memoir from a long time business executive who decided to make his very first (and so far only, according to the text here) campaign for public office be to seek to replace outgoing Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner when Boehner announced his resignation in 2015. Spurlino speaks with candor about what was going on when he heard the announcement, what he was looking for in a candidate, and, when he didn't see any of that... what influenced him to run in the first place. The rest of the book is largely a deep dive into what running for US Congress is really like, from an "everyman" (ish) perspective, and through this section Spurlino shows himself to be fairly well read and reasoned, as well as very approachable. The last section of the book is a bit of a lessons learned/ future proposals look, and through this section in particular Spurlino truly shines in speaking out against the more popular populist positions of the day, including expanding the Supreme Court (he says to expand Congress instead), eliminating the Electoral College (not going to happen), and general Congressional reforms. Overall a very easy to read and short-ish at under 300 pages real-world look into what really goes on in our Congressional electoral processes in the United States, and therefore very much recommended.

Thanks, NetGalley, for providing access to Losing our elections.

I enjoyed this book as a non-US citizen was exciting to see a journey from a candidate's perspective in the greatest democracy in the world. The author is not a political candidate, which makes it even more enjoyable.

Is sad that money buys influence that leads to winning elections. Moreover, the candidate makes some suggestions to improve the election system but recognises that it would be challenging to change due to the influence to keep it as is.

I wonder, in an ideal world, making a pool of raised money and sharing equally among the candidates wouldn't make it fairer and allowing to be each candidate's ideas to be a differentiator factor for candidates.

Well written and easy to read. Recommend.