What It Takes, by Richard Ben Cramer

What this episode covers

Published in 1991, Richard Ben Cramer’s book What It Takes remains the richest and most detailed account of the personal price of running for president. The irony, as Cramer pointed out to C-SPANN when the book was first published, is that to become president a candidate must sacrifice the entire life that prepared him or her for office in the first place. Longtime Esquire political correspondent Charles P. Pierce joins host David Brancaccio to discuss how Cramer’s book—which was excerpted in three parts in Esquire in the 1990s—continues to shape how we understand presidential politics today and the psyches of those with the hubris to seek the highest office.

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