Politics: Ten Articles To Help You Explain This Election to Your Relatives

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Politics Ten Articles To Help You Explain This Election to Your Relatives Want to be the most informed person at the table and convert your in-laws? By David Weigel Posted Wednesday, Nov 21, 2012, at 12:45 PM ET One of the unwelcome perks of political reporting is the widespread belief among your peers that you want to spend more time talking about politics. Any trip home, like the one I'm going to make on Thursday, becomes a tour of friends and family who want me to explain the inside story of the election one more time. I end up pointing these people to good articles by other people, by insiders and investigative reporters, and this usually gives me enough time to run away. You can try it, too. This may have felt like a dull election at times, but it was one of the most pointed clashes of ideologies and strategies in decades. Your own family might want to quote back Saturday Night Live or Daily Show segments; you can impress them by diving much deeper into the real story of the race. These are some of this election's must-read articles: Jim Messina, Obama's Enforcer Ari Berman, The Nation Sometimes you write a story with a thesis that gets blown to pieces—and a lot of bread crumbs leading to the actual truth. Ari Berman's 2011 profile of Barack Obama's campaign manager revealed just how little love Messina could expect from progressives. The new guy, a veteran of Sen. Max Baucus' office, would run a "cautious, controlling, top-down in structure" campaign, pouring acid on the grassroots. Luckily for Obama, it didn't happen, and the article now looks like a smorgasboard of foreshadowing ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate The Purple Prose of Cairo Don't Worry About the Voting Rights Act What Do Anonymous and MTV Have in Common?	Advertisement
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