I had starting reading this book when it first came out but put it down around page 40 and hadn't bothered to pick it up until last week. I am addicted to the political gossip. Love the behind the scene stories we didn't get to see.

3.5 stars

This is an incredibly detailed account of the Democratic primaries, with a bit of the Republican primaries and the general election thrown in.

Honestly, as I close the book on October 7th, 2016 and am confronted with the gross reality of the Donald Trump candidacy, my immediate thought is, "they didn't even know which game had changed." The "crazies" flocking to McCain/Palin rallies and accusing Obama of being a terrorist, who make up approximately three paragraphs of the entire book, are the game change. The rise of the alt-right is the story. Maybe they realized that by 2012.

I was in love with this book. It was almost 15 hours long, so an investment of time.

The book is based off over 300 insiders from the 2007-2008 political campaigns. It is as close to non-partisan as I could imagine a political book. The first half is very focused on the left, becasue that it where the action was. Throughout I learned so many things about the inside of political campaigns and politics in general while listening.

Throughout the book I found myself rooting for the underdog, even knowing how the story ends. When it was time for McCain to pick a running mate I kept yelling at him to pick Liberman. He didn't listen. I had a new respect for everyone in the book, except Obama.

Overall a very cool book, well worth the time for anyone who has even just a small interest in politics.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1847222.html

This is a brilliant account of the 2008 US presidential election, concentrating particularly on the Obama/Clinton dynamic (since that turned out to be much more important and durable than the Obama/McCain dynamic). The authors claim to have got detailed accounts from campaign insiders of key conversations and exchanges right up to the level of the candidates, and it rings true without revealing anything about the two key personalities that I had not already guessed. (It seems to have been published as Game Change in the USA.)

Three aspects of the narrative really struck me.

First, that the candidates themselves tend to be pretty flawed human beings. Successively the Edwards and McCain campaigns crashed to disaster largely because of the personalities of Edwards and McCain themselves, unwilling to adapt to the discipline necessary to keep their teams motivated and to avoid gaffes to the press. Both Obama and McCain suffered serious wobbles in the last few weeks before the election due to the indiscipline of their running-mates. All of those individuals had previous won elections for public office, so it is surprising that Edwards and McCain were not able to deal with the demands of the presidential campiagn. I can cut Biden and Palin a bit more slack, as the vice-presidential slot is much more peculiar, and perhaps Edwards is explicable because he was in complete denial about the state of his marriage. But McCain's behaviour is just bizarre.

Second, and linked to the first point, the peculiar desire of the media - particular the US media - for spectacle rather than story means that any electoral campaign is vulnerable to a single killer moment. Occasionally - as with Hillary Clinton's tearful interview in New Hampshire, which it is pretty clear won her the primary there - it works to the candidate's advantage. Much more often, of course, it reacts to their disadvantage, as Rick Perry is discovering.

Third, and also linked to the first point, the fact that the US system is so very candidate-based rather than party-based makes the professional campaigner's career much more volatile and much more based on personality. That has consequences for how campaigns work internally. Staffers are jockeying not only to get the credit for getting their candidate elected, but also for positioning in the victorious candidate's administration and/or for a better-paid role in the next campaign. It can also be much more difficult to tell the candidate home truths about their own performance, compared to the situation if both candidate and staffer are beholden to a political party structure rather than staffers being utterly dependent on the candidate's whim. It also feeds into the dependence of the campaigns on continual fund-raising.

In the end, Obama won because his fundamentals were sound; he had a good narrative in the first place, he was disciplined about sticking to it, and he was fortunate in both the character of his opponent in the general election and the economic circumstances which made Republicans unelectable in 2008. Clinton was unlucky in that her narrative was almost as good and her discipline equal to Obama's, but her campaign team was less coherent (for the reasons given above) and she carried unfair negative baggage in the shape of her husband. McCain lost because he deserved to. (The authors are surprisingly sympathetic to Sarah Palin, and blame McCain for choosing her without sufficient forethought and exposing her on the national platform without adequate preparation.) An excellent book from which I learned some interesting things.

More than anything Heilemann has confirmed my initial impression of all the 2008 candidates. Sadly.

best book I have read in a loooong time.

I saw Colbert talk about this one shortly before actually getting my copy at the library, and yes, the use of anonymous sourcing and such is ridiculous. Plus, if you followed close attention to the 2008 campaign, you know exactly who is responsible for what in some cases. With all that said, I had trouble putting this one down, and if even a quarter of what’s in this book is accurate, well…

Obviously this book is a little sensationalized, but overall, a great look into the 2008 election. It is heavy on the Democratic side of primary, which gives you a lot of insight into Hilary and Obama and their teams, but leaves you a bit curious about some of the Republican candidates. I found the story line of the rogue VPs on both sides to be quite interesting as well.

A great picture of the big names surrounding the 2008 presidential election. As my interest in American politics has grown over the years, I’ve come to realize the importance of that election in ways that my young, teenage self never did. I appreciated Heilemann and Halperin’s commitment to an unbiased account of each of the “characters.” Definitely recommend for anyone with any interest in modern American politics.

This is politics with all ideas and policy debates drained out of it, and just personalities and strategy left. It has a certain 'train wreck in slow motion' appeal, especially the Sarah Palin parts, but it mostly left me cold. The writing is full of cliches throughout, too.

It was worth checking out of the library, but I'm glad I didn't buy a copy. Can't see wanting to re-read this.