Richard Goldstein Interview

An interview with Richard Goldstein co-author of The Contenders. Goldstein offers an unusual perspective on Obama, contrasting his “soft” brand of masculinity with a machismo that dominated contemporary politics and popular culture (i.e. George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eminem) just a few years ago. "Call it packaging, call it hype,” Goldstein says. But that saga of personal and political discovery is the most exciting narrative to emerge from the Democratic repertoire in many years. It is not a drama of rising from meager expectations or a romance of courage under fire. Those are tropes of presidential theater, but Obama’s story is a more like an epic that resounds with a root American theme: overcoming the burden of history." Goldstein writes regularly for The Nation. He is also the author of Homocons: The Rise of the Gay Right. Recorded September 25, 2007