Reviews of California Crackup
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“A compelling book called California Crackup describes this problem more generally. It was written by a pair of journalists and nonpartisan think-tank scholars, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, and they explain, among other things, why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s experience as governor was going to be unlike any other experience in his career: he was never going to win.” READ MORE Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short. |
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“There’s a new book out that deserves wide attention, called California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It, by Joe Mathews and Mark Paul. I found—I read it on vacation recently—it’s one of the most cogent, freshest, and incisive diagnoses of what ails California and also has some really outside-of-the-box ideas that ought to get considered in terms of how California fixes its political problems in ways that maybe would point the way forward for the country.” LISTEN FOR MORE Matt Miller, author of The Tyranny of Dead Ideas and host of national radio show Left, Right, and Center. |
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“They’ve written a terrific book. Cataloging the multiple, inter-locking political elements that caused the collapse of governance in California, the two veteran political writers draw these pieces together into a lucid framework that offers not only a clear diagnosis, but also a serious prescription for what ails the not-so-Golden State. "The clarity of their writing and the cogency of their argument put to shame the content of the current campaign for governor." READ MORE Jerry Roberts & Phil Trounstine at Calbuzz. |
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“In California Crackup, Mathews and Paul provide the best explanation we’ve yet had of the scope and sources of the state’s governmental dysfunctionality. More important, they also provide the most far-reaching and thoughtful proposals for reinventing California’s government — so far-reaching and thoughtful, in fact, that their recommendations should be considered in every capital where small-d democrats find themselves banging their heads against the wall in sheer frustration.” READ MORE Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large at The American Prospect and columnist for The Washington Post. |
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“In their new book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It, Joe Matthews and Mark Paul detail a history of dysfunctional government and fiscal disarray that seems to have been written into the state’s DNA.” READ MORE Jennifer Rubin in Commentary. |
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“Neither Mr. Brown or Ms. Whitman, as they attempt to blaze a trail to the governor's mansion, have suggested anything as sweeping as the proposals in California Crackup. Their own fixes, at best, will be technocratic—increasing government efficiency, for instance, instead of simply piling on more public funds. Still, both candidates may want to read the book's diagnosis of the potentially terminal problems that one of them is certain to inherit.” READ MORE Troy Senik, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, in the Wall Street Journal. |
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“Let’s get the blurb out of the way at the beginning: this is a great book; everyone who wants to fix California needs to read it.” READ MORE Garrett Gruener, Alta Partners, in the California Journal of Politics and Policy. |
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“If you are determined to assist California remake itself, take care of the citizenry, entrepreneurs, natural resources, and financial infrastructure of this lovely region, read this book.” READ MORE Marcia Jo in the San Francisco Book Review. |
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“When Mathews and Paul shine a light on the way we do things, it's enough to make a cockroach blush.” READ MORE Dan Bernstein in The Press-Enterprise |
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“If you've grown weary of California's annual budget stalemates and furloughs, if you're frustrated by the Legislature, if you feel California is broken, then California Crackup should be required reading. [A] concise and lucid analysis of how the state arrived at its current mess… California Crackup is worth the time for anyone who has complained that the state is broken.” READ MORE Byron Williams in the Contra Costa Times. |
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“The book is brisk, well-argued, at times darkly funny — and deserves an audience far broader than the policy wonks who will be drawn to it.” READ MORE Scott Timberg, co-editor The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles |
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“This book does a superb job of laying out the state's current political problems, explaining how they became so critical, and offering ideas for what [the authors] call a Great Unwinding.” READ MORE Peter Richardson, author of American Prophet: The Life & Work of Carey McWilliams. |
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“This insightful read on the perils of the Golden State presents the best explanation I have read on how our state governance got to be so bogged down and unresponsive to the challenges we face.... A must read for residents living within its borders. This book is on my required reading list for engaged citizens.” READ MORE Jennie Snyder |
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“When it comes to the Golden State’s ills, the depth of our despair is matched only by the dysfunction of our system…. Now Joe Mathews…and Mark Paul… have charted the disastrous reform efforts that left us with a polity ‘both unintended and unworkable.’…Their lucid analysis is spiked with wit and appealing turns of phrase… that lift it above mere wonkery. Mathews and Paul know that their advice will probably go unheeded. All the more reason, then, for them to think big. A” READ MORE Chris Smith, in San Francisco Magazine. |
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“Impressive.... Should be read by anyone, conservative or liberal, who has strong feelings about the state of our state.” READ MORE Royal Calkins in the Monterey County Herald. |
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“Journalists Joe Mathews and Mark Paul have penned a short and readable book, California Crackup, that’s ultimately as unsatisfying as the radical centrist philosophy itself.” READ MORE Steven Greenhut in City Journal. |
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“In less than 200 pages of clear, accessible prose, Paul and Matthews have given worried Californians reason to hope that real reform can still take root. They have disenthralled themselves, and by doing so equipped citizens to set their government aright.” READ MORE Howard Weaver, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor. |
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“California is in serious trouble, and it’s precisely because the state keeps trying to fix itself. Propositions and ballot initiatives, which are supposed to be democratic, instead end up at odds with each other and prove to be self-defeating.... A timely book with a lot of important things to say.” READ MORE Tasnim Shamma in Newsweek. |
