The Good Fight | 
 enlarge | Authors: Harry Reid, Mark Warren
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 190675
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 7.4 x 0.2
ISBN: 039915499X
Dewey Decimal Number: 328.73092
EAN: 9780399154997
ASIN: 039915499X
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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Product Description
One of the remarkable books of this season a tough, plainspoken, deeply passionate narrative by one of our most important national figures.
We all know them: politicians books that read as if theyve been cobbled together from old speeches. The Good Fight is as far from that as it is possible to get.
In a voice that is flinty, real, and passion-filled, Senator Harry Reid tells the tale of two places, intertwining his own story, particularly his early life of deep poverty in the tiny mining town of Searchlight, Nevadaa place that boasted of thirteen brothels and no churcheswith the cautionary tale of Washington, D.C.: If I can do nothing greater in this book than explain those two places to each other, then I will have done something important.
Reid is inspired by obstacles. Brought up in a cabin without indoor plumbing, he hitchhiked forty-five miles across open desert to high school. He worked full-time as a Capitol Hill policeman to get through law school, after the school refused him financial aid, telling him he wasnt cut out to be a lawyer. As head of the Nevada Gaming Commission, he led an unrelenting fight to clean up Las Vegas, despite four years of death threats and much worse. And in Congress, Reids spent more than twenty-five years battling those who would take the country in the wrong direction: The radical ideologues degrade our government, so much so that when they are in charge of it, they do not know how to run it.
And, always, it all comes back to Searchlight: Who I am now, and what I am doing now, began in that town, with those people, in those mines. This book is the story of a man who knows what a good fight is, because he has had to fight like hell for everything his whole life. It is populated by a rich and raucous cast of great and failed men, eccentrics, visionaries, gangsters, and presidents who make up his life and times. And it is for all those who not only like a good story, but wonder what we should do now in America.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Fascinating Stories and penetrating insight of Washington June 28, 2008
With the exception of 1 or 2 chapters early on, the book was a page turner. I couldn't put it down. The book is a worthwhile read whatever your political persuasion.
Jerry
Better on Reid's earlier days, so-so on Washington June 3, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
"The Good Fight" explains well why Harry Reid is a good Democrat on most social issues.
Growing up in a shack with an outhouse in half-dead Searchlight, Nev., in the New Deal, he learned about the hope and support government programs can offer to people on the edge.
Searchlight is detailed with warts, vivid colors and all by Reid. So, too, are his parents.
Beyond that, the best part of the book was Reid's discussion of his years as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. While he doesn't go into a tell-all of Mob influence over Vegas casinos, he gives the reader enough information to see how much the city needed cleaning up. And, with Reid presiding over the commission at the time non-Mafiosi like Steve Wynn and Kirk Kerkorian started building, he was part of Vegas' transition to the world of today.
That said, the Washington years are somewhat thin. All Democrats are great, as is independent Joe Lieberman on anything besides Iraq. The difficulty of herding cats as Senate Majority Leader is discussed in brief, but not too much on any one issue or vote.
Nor do we hear anything about how Obama-Clinton has played out inside the Senate Democratic caucus. I would have loved to hear Reid drop a few "fly on the wall" comments.
So, this is a three/four star book, but I give it a bump, in part with the context of people one-starring the book for other reasons.
An uncommon story June 1, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
There are plenty of rags-to-riches stories in America, but there are few that read with so much candor. Senator Reid's deadpan humor also comes thru. I highly recommend this book - if you're a Democrat, to learn a bit more about your party's unassuming leader; if you're a Republican, to get a leg up one hell of an opponent!
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "PUT THE POLITICS ASIDE AND YOU HAVE A REALLY INTERESTING AMERICAN STORY!" May 30, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I would first like to make it clear that I am not what you would call a political "animal". Though of course I knew that Harry Reid is a United States Senator, I did not buy this book for his political beliefs or stance on current issues. I had seen a couple of interviews with him on TV regarding this book that all centered on his "hard-scrabble" background and family issues, and that's what led to me to buy this book. I don't know of any American today who isn't sick and tired of this "ENDLESS- PRIMARY-ELECTION" with its continuous mud-slinging, back-stabbing, lies and innuendos. Maybe it's just the season, but Senator Reid's political chapters seem to be infected with the same diatribes. BUT...
The rest of the book which entails Reid's personal life is ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING! I think maybe the Senator didn't realize how interesting and entertaining his tales of his days as a lawyer and the CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE NEVADA GAMING COMMISSION are. Harry was born in a tiny mining town in Searchlight, Nevada. The leading industry in town when he was born wasn't mining, it was prostitution. Searchlight had thirteen whorehouses and no churches. As a child, Harry learned how to swim at a whorehouse. His parents had problems with alcohol and at times would have physical fights in front of their children. Harry's statement regarding this situation is what starts to endear the reader to this "man" rather than politics. "I AM NOT CONFESSIONAL BY NATURE, SO SOME OF THESE THINGS ARE SURPASSING HARD FOR ME TO SAY. I LOVED MY PARENTS VERY MUCH. THEY GAVE LIFE EVERYTHING THEY HAD. BUT NO CHILD SHOULD BE RAISED THE WAY I WAS RAISED." The house he was raised in was nothing more than a shack made out of railroad ties. His Father was fifty-seven-years-old when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. "The last year of his life, he had been sober-no more masking his demons with alcohol. Harry and his brothers still joke that it was being sober that killed him."
The author shares a number of his legal cases that ranged from "Martinez v. Safeway. This was one of many cases that Harry's firm did not want him to handle, since the client had no money. Harry defended Joyce Martinez a cocktail waitress who was arrested at her place of work for supposedly writing bad checks. She not only didn't write the checks but Safeway thinking it was above the law, skipped steps that needed to be taken during the legal process. Harry won the case and Joyce's award was the largest in history in a case of malicious prosecution. Another case he defended against was entitled: "United States of America vs. Four Machine Guns and One Silencer.
In 1972 Howard Hughes owned five hotels in Las Vegas and no one in Vegas had seen him. As Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission Harry was ordered by the Governor to get Howard Hughes to appear at a meeting, or Hughes's gaming licenses would be revoked. Harry's reaction was: "He had not granted an interview in twenty years. HE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN IN TWENTY YEARS, and you want me to arrange a meeting with a man who had refused to see ANYONE for decades. Okay, I would do it." Harry had to track down the "Mormon Mafia", who were a group of loyal employees that Hughes had surrounded himself with. "Hughes felt that because of their devout faith, they were the only people he could trust." They tracked Hughes down in Europe and arranged a one hour meeting in London. The Governor and the Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board flew to London and met with Hughes for one hour. Reid never got to meet him face to face but the Governor told him that Hughes "looked emaciated, with sunken eyes, free-range fingernails, and a mop of long, stringy hair." After the meeting Hughes's gaming license was renewed.
There was an incident while Harry was gaming commissioner when he was approached by an underworld character and offered a bribe. Harry became part of a sting operation and when the FBI burst into the room to arrest the mob guy, Harry lost his temper and thought "How could they think they could do this to me? I was so angry I went up to the gangster and said: You SOB, you tried to bribe me! I lunged at the gangster and got him in a choke hold. I was in a rage. The FBI agents had to pull me off of the criminal." Harry and his family started to get death threats and they even tried to bomb his cars. Harry decided then to get into politics.
As I said in the opening of my review, Senator Reid might not fully appreciate how fascinating and engaging his stories are. He says he has many more of them. I would wholeheartedly recommend the Senator write another book fully dedicated to the non-political parts of his life. Near the very end of the book, Harry receives a request from his sixteen-year-old granddaughter, as part of a project in her school to have a family member write about an experience that helped shape their testimony about faith. One part of his response touched me deeply, and I couldn't think of a better way to end my review.
"MY OUTLOOK ON LIFE -MY-FAITH- IS BEST SUMMARIZED BY AN INSCRIPTION FOUND IN A COLOGNE, GERMANY, CELLAR WHERE JEWS HID FROM THE NAZIS WHICH READ, "I BELIEVE IN THE SUN EVEN WHEN IT IS NOT SHINING. I BELIEVE IN LOVE EVEN WHEN NOT FEELING IT. I BELIEVE IN G-D EVEN WHEN HE IS SILENT."
What Americans used to be like... May 25, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read this book yesterday. This is what, as a child in Canada, i grew up thinking Americans were like. This man is profoundly strong of character and as tough an individualist as you are ever going to find in this life. The word 'inregrity' just doesn't even approach it. The mild manner you see, the soft voice, covers titanium... I am betting that my individual experience would reflect the world's ... this is what the world used to think Americans were like.
An awesome book about an extraordinary human being.
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