Obama not out: Talk of return, new book
NEW YORK Former US President Barack Obama is close to making a reappearance in politics, according to his friend and former attorney general Eric Holder.
“It’s coming. He’s coming. And he’s ready to roll,” Holder told reporters at a briefing for National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which Obama asked Holder to chair last year, Politico reported.
Holder said he’s been talking to Obama about ways, including fundraising and interacting with state legislators, that could help the new group, set up by the Democrats to prepare for the changes in 2021 that will see US states redraw their Congressional and state legislative lines.
Holder said Obama “will be a more visible part of the effort”.
He said that fighting Republican gerrymandering would be a “primary concern” for Obama after his presidency, reported the New York Times.
OBAMAS INK NEW BOOK DEAL WITH PENGUIN
Barack and Michelle Obama have signed a deal to publish their memoirs with New York-based Penguin Random House, in a coveted contract reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars.
America’s first African American president is already the author of two memoirs and a children’s book.
He has frequently declared himself to have a “writer’s sensi bility” and has said he does not want to write a conventiona blow-by-blow account of his time in the White House.
Michelle Obama’s memoir is likely to be just as eagerly antici pated. A descendant of slaves, she became the first African Ameri can first lady and garnered high approval ratings -- to the point where she was arguably one of the country’s most respected and popular women.
Penguin Random House said in a statement it has “acquired world publication rights for two books, to be written by president and Mrs Obama respectively.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but bidding for the high-profile double book dea topped $60 million, a record sum for US presidential memoirs according to the Financial Times
Until now, the record for a US presidential memoir was $15 mil lion, paid for Bill Clinton.