You could add Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" and a few others I think (Huey Long and "Every Man a King" for instance).

In the case of both Kennedy and Obama the book was used in combination with great oratory skill to introduce the candidate to the people: You hear an amazing speech by the candidate and want to learn more. You find they have written a book and decide to read it. The book gives you a feeling of intimacy with the candidate which turns you into a supporter.

It isnt about party a or b. I supported Obama when the message was hope and change. The actual delivery is realpolitik.

I've worked in government, although not at the Federal level. Commissioners/directors/administrators don't control the message, the elected official does. The fact that the FBI Director isn't spending more time with his family is tacit administration approval of the "posturing".

Read Profiles in Courage. Great leaders stand for their principles, even at personal cost. Yet here we are in 2013 and Guantanamo is still open.

This is not a new phenomenon: JFK even wrote a book about it, titled "Profiles in Courage": The book profiles senators who crossed party lines and/or defied the public opinion of their constituents to do what they felt was right and suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity because of their actions. [1]

So sometimes the right thing to do is the unpopular thing. But that's not new. While democracy is great at preventing certain abuses of power which clearly hurt the populace at large. Hence, it is also good at preventing violent uprising. So while it comes up with good solutions to some problems, the democratic process we have doesn't come up with the right solution to every problem, terrorism being a good example. This notion is much older than JFK, of course. One purpose of the Bill of Rights was explicitly anti-democratic: put in a general way, it prohibits the majority from oppressing inherent rights of minorities.

In theory, it is the role of the courts to strike down such laws as unconstitutional. In practice, this doesn't seem to happen very quickly, Japanese internment serving as one historical comparison [2]. But the sky has not fallen, former transgressions were greater, and like them, this too, shall pass.

What is novel about the current political climate in the US, as far as I can tell, is the extent of the influence money has in politics, and the magnitude of such money being spent. The best chronicle of this I've read is "So Much Damned Money" [3]. This is a problem worth fretting over.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiles_in_Courage

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

3. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307266540