Morning Drive: Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Talking by Michael A. Smerconish

From the Publisher

Once reliably Republican. Now less so. What is he?
A lightning rod of controversy and spirited discussion. That’s what.
Michael A. Smerconish 

One of America’s leading political pundits takes on our media-driven mindset and tells it like it is—on the issues that matter most to the nation’s present—and future.

Praise for Morning Drive
 
“Michael Smerconish is a feeling, thinking American. He has an open heart and an open mind. Read Morning Drive and you hear someone trying to put it together for himself. . . . [W]hen it comes to defining the America debate in the early twenty-first century, this guy’s right where the tire hits the road.”
—Chris Matthews, host of Hardball with Chris Matthews

“Morning Drive is a must for Washington insiders and citizens across the country who are interested in preserving not just a healthy two-party system—but also their ability to get access to balanced, impartial news.”
—United States Senator Arlen Specter, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

“Michael Smerconish . . . doesn’t part on ideology or a partisan political agenda, and he sure as heck isn’t predictable. It’s that same independence and unpredictability that make Morning Drive a great read.”
—Governor Edward G. Rendell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

“Morning Drive provides terrific insight into who Michael is, how he came to be, and how independent thinking is essential to achieving smart political results.”
—Harold Ford, Jr., former United States Congressman, Chair of Democratic Leadership Council

Publishers Weekly

In this memoir-cum-mission statement, radio talker Smerconish delivers a wrap-up of his punditry career mapped to a 15-point "Suburban Manifesto" he first published in a 2006 Philadelphia Daily News column. A long-time Republican upset by his party's present course, Smerconish outlines his principles and goals in the realms of politics (pushing back against the far right) and media (he claims to be mislabeled "conservative"). Instead of focusing on opinions, however, Smerconish presents memorable anecdotes from his career, illuminating life behind the mike. Readers of any political persuasion should find Smerconish's candor and style accessible and quite charming, as he demonstrates unusual respect for all kinds of political thought. His Manifesto (with entries for immigration, gays, preventing terror, Bin Laden, etc.), however, provides scatter-shot organization, derailed further by a tendency to wander (or leap) off topic. Though this volume makes Smerconish a more accessible and sympathetic figure than most pundits, it puts his strong common-sense agenda (his ostensible raison d'etre) on the back burner.
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