Why booksellers love Obama

“Going negative against Democrat Barack Obama isn’t just a campaign strategy for Republican John McCain,” said the Associated Press’ Hillel Italie in The Arizona Republic. “It’s also a good formula for selling books.” Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality is one of three Obama bashing titles that made the top 40 of Amazon.com’s best-seller list on Monday.

Actually, Corsi’s book is going to “top the Aug. 17 New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list,” said Kate Linthicum in a Los Angeles Times blog. And it won’t be the first time he’s hit No. 1: He also did it with his 2004 book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. In his new book, Corsi “lashes out at Barack Obama and alleges, among other things, that the politician has a secret radical Islamic agenda.”

It’s not just negative books that are doing well, said the Associated Press. “Whether they like him or oppose him, readers want to hear more about Barack Obama.” The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee himself is “the author of the million-selling Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.”

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And Obama has reason to hope for more success, said Siri Agrell in the Globe and Mail. Bill Clinton and Al Gore made the bestseller list when they released Putting People First during the election season in 1992. With election interests especially high this year, Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise is “expected to be an instant bestseller” when released on Sept. 9.