I’m reviewing his book for NR. I’ll refrain from commenting on it until then, mainly because I, um, haven’t read it yet. I hope there’s still something to chew over when I do.
Your descriptions of his book reminded me of a Michael Barone wrote in NR a few years ago:
Political judgments are affected by temperament. Optimists tend to be confident that their side is winning and alert to signs that things are moving their way. Pessimists tend to be gloomily certain that their own side is messing things up and that the other side is running circles around them. Pessimists often produce great political reporting. Robert Novak, an embattled conservative, is always ready to report stories that show conservatives hopelessly divided, outmaneuvered, on the verge of defeat. The Washington Post’s Thomas Edsall, a gloomy Irish liberal, chronicled the rise of the Religious Right and conservative Republicans’ gains in the ethnic working class. We optimists have it a little harder. We’re inclined to see the smallest glimmer of hope as a harbinger of victory. We tend to overlook issues or character traits that produce serious problems for our candidates. We are slow to discern trends in the wrong direction. We can try to discipline ourselves by rigorously analyzing data, but sometimes such discipline is not enough.