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Date Posted: 5/11/20

Audio Book  The Long Game: A Memoir by Mitch McConnell

Summary: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell narrates and summarizes his life and mostly his political career discussing what he has learned and gives us an insider look at the inner workings of life in the U.S. Senate.

Starting with his childhood and family life, Mitch McConnell details how he became interested at an early age to get into politics both at school and college as student president and how it has been his lifelong goal to become the Senate Majority leader.  The book chronicles his career all the way up to 2016 shortly before the 2016 presidency and talks about Trump not at all.  I wish I could hear his thoughts on Trump.  The new paperback version has a new afterward and a forward by president Trump.

The author is a great narrator and I liked his sense of humor.

Some of his biggest lessons that he has learned include the value of hard work and starting as early as possible on your campaign.  After you win you need to work hard to keep your promises.  Be ready to make decisions on the fly because you are elected to not only keep promises, but to make sound judgements.  Keep a clear head and don't let emotion cloud your judgement, because there is a lot of chaos and nonsense in the Senate let alone the House.  Patience and perseverance are also vital because it took nearly 30 years for Mitch McConnell to become the Senate majority leader.  Even when you lose you can sow the seeds for a later victory.  This last point is the one I don't fully agree with although he is very persuasive.

There were many other lessons learned as you read through the book.  Unfortunately, I get the impression that he is not a Christian even though he holds many conservative and Christian values. EDIT (5/12/20): Thankfully, I appear to be wrong. ref

Surprisingly, my already bad opinion of Obama became worse with this book.  Apparently, Obama does not like to listen or compromise and is very egotistical.  Joe Biden is, surprisingly, the opposite and my opinion of Biden actually went up after reading this book.

Conclusion: I give this book high marks although I have yet to have a political book score above 8/10.  I was pleasantly surprised with Mitch McConnell's speaking ability although in retrospect I suppose I shouldn't have been considering his occupation.

If you want the more complete version you will need to buy the book.


Purchased: 5/6/20
Finished: 5/11/20
Score: 8/10



TAGS: mini-review