Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton—and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage...
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"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it." —Barack Obama, September 2008 In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton—and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.The New York Times Book Review - Jacob HeilbrunnHeilemann, a columnist for New York magazine, and Halperin, the senior political analyst for Time, have conducted hundreds of interviews to provide the inside story of the 2008 campaign, longer on vignettes and backstage gossip than on analysis. But if their racy account provides little context for Obama's rise, it vividly shows how character flaws large and small caused his opponents to self-destruct. The narrative also reinforces the familiar argument that a presidential campaign provides one important test of a candidate's ability to govern.
Prologue 1Ch. 1 Her Time 13Ch. 2 The Alternative 23Ch. 3 The Ground Beneath Her Feet 39Ch. 4 Getting to res 55Ch. 5 The Inevitables 77Ch. 6 Barack in a Box 103Ch. 7 "They Looooove Me!" 123Ch. 8 The Turning Point 145Ch. 9 The Fun Part 159Ch. 10 Two for the Price of One 177Ch. 11 Fear and Loathing in the Lizard's Thicket 193Ch. 12 Pulling Away and Falling Apart 217Ch. 13 Obama Agonistes 233Ch. 14 The Bitter End Game 251Ch. 15 The Maverick and His Meltdown 271Ch. 16 Running Unopposed 287Ch. 17 Slipping Nooses, Slaying Demons 305Ch. 18 Paris and Berlin 323Ch. 19 The Mile-High Club 335Ch. 20 Sarahcuda 353Ch. 21 September Surprise 377Ch. 22 Seconds in Command 395Ch. 23 The Finish Line 417Epilogue: Together at Last 429Index 437
\ Jacob Heilbrunn"Heilemann and Halperin have conducted hundreds of interviews to provide the inside story of the 2008 campaign. . . . It vividly shows how character flaws large and small caused Obama’s opponents to self-destruct."\ \ \ \ \ Tina Brown"A smoking new book. . . . The real revelation in Game Change: Campaigns turn our politicians into lunatics."\ \ \ Stephen Colbert"I can’t put down this book!"\ \ \ \ \ Tim Rutten"Compulsively readable. Once begun, you can’t put it down. . . . Deeply and knowledgeably reported and presented with all the cool sophistication one would expect from two accomplished political reporters."\ \ \ \ \ Kurt Andersen"Riveting, definitive. . . . A great campaign book. . . . Halperin and Heilemann got insiders to cough up astonishing artifacts, including emails and recordings. . . . Game Change is really interesting, and puts you deep in the middle of it."\ \ \ \ \ Joe Scarborough"The best presidential political book since What it Takes by Richard Ben Cramer and Teddy White’s books. These are the types of books that got me into politics."\ \ \ \ \ on Larry King Live"An explosive new book. . . . An absolute page turner."\ \ \ \ \ Don Imus"You’ve got to read Game Change. . . . I read each and every word. . . . Game Change is a great book."\ \ \ \ \ Michiko Kakutani"A fascinating account. . . . Heilemann and Halperin serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations, and allegations. . . . Game Change leaves the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history."\ \ \ \ \ Tina Jordan"Riveting. . . . Its pages brim with scandalous tidbits. . . . This is a must-read for anyone interested in the cutthroat backroom hows and whys of a presidential campaign. . . . And it doesn’t hurt that Game Change reads more bodice-ripper than Beltway."\ \ \ \ \ Hendrik Hertzberg"The authors of Game Change succeed in creating a plausible account of the emotional tumult of the 2008 campaign as it might have been—perhaps even was—experienced by the candidates, their spouses, and their staffs."\ \ \ \ \ Clive Crook"An amazing piece of work. . . . One of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22. . . . An absolutely gripping read . . . they can write."\ \ \ \ \ The Associated Press"The hottest book in the country."\ \ \ \ \ The Economist"A thoroughly researched, well-paced and occasionally very amusing read. . . . The result is something that conveys the feel, or perhaps more accurately the smell, of one of recent history’s most thrilling elections, and it does so better than any of the other books already on the market."\ \ \ \ \ Michiko Kakutani…a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations and allegations…Though this book focuses on personal matters, not policy concerns, and though some of what will be its most talked about passages fall into the realm of gossip and reflect the views of chatty and, in some cases, bitter, regretful or spin-conscious aides, the volume does leave the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history.\ —The New York Times\ \ \ \ \ Jacob HeilbrunnHeilemann, a columnist for New York magazine, and Halperin, the senior political analyst for Time, have conducted hundreds of interviews to provide the inside story of the 2008 campaign, longer on vignettes and backstage gossip than on analysis. But if their racy account provides little context for Obama's rise, it vividly shows how character flaws large and small caused his opponents to self-destruct. The narrative also reinforces the familiar argument that a presidential campaign provides one important test of a candidate's ability to govern.\ —The New York Times Book Review\ \ \ \ \ Alan Wolfe…[Heilemann and Halperin] not only tell the story of the 2008 campaign in an engaging and readable way, they come up with some real reporting. Much of that reporting, it must be said, is of the gossipy sort, such as Harry Reid's by-now famous comment about black speech. Still, although I had some sense of the dimensions of the Palin disaster before reading this book, the authors' account of how she failed to prepare for her debate with Joe Biden is chilling…I doubt that any other book about the 2008 election will top this one in narrative drive.\ —The Washington Post\ \
