I Am the Change tries to understand Obama as he understands himself, based largely on his own writings, speeches, and interviews. Kesler, a leading conservative scholar, educator, and journalist, takes Obama seriously as an intelligent and thoughtful progressive who is intent on reinvigorating the liberal faith and leading it to a new political preeminence—but who fails to understand the contradictions and crises, both fiscal and philosophical, toward which he is rushing.

Will Obama save liberalism and become its fourth great incarnation, following Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson? Or will the movement be derailed by his very successes? These are the questions at the heart of Kesler's indispensable guide to the past, and the future, of American liberalism.