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jjordankc's review against another edition
4.0
This was an engaging, enlightening, informative, interesting account of the 2008 election. For anyone who followed the election closely or had a personal interest in the outcome or players, I strongy recommend this book!
hayo's review against another edition
2.0
It's a good story, I just wished it was written by someone else. My main gripe was the language. They fall into the pattern of using French or Latin to sound smart. Then they add to that a lot of jargon they refuse to explain. Coupled with the rest of their writing style this seems more like a very long tabloid article. Where it would be nice to go into greater depth of the mechanisms of the elections, the book just becomes shallower and shallower.
srlemons42's review against another edition
5.0
I really liked this book. This is the election that really got me interested in politics and how the whole process works, not only on a national level but at my own local level as well.
This is basically the story of the 2008 election. The book uses behind the scenes information from a bunch of sources to put together the bigger then life personalities running for president. It starts out with Obama and Clinton and their race through the primaries and switches to McCain around the halfway mark to tell his story and in the end smashes the stories together to relate the end of the election in November.
It is written in a very layman's, friendly way that means anyone will be able to follow along without being bogged down in insider political terms.
This is basically the story of the 2008 election. The book uses behind the scenes information from a bunch of sources to put together the bigger then life personalities running for president. It starts out with Obama and Clinton and their race through the primaries and switches to McCain around the halfway mark to tell his story and in the end smashes the stories together to relate the end of the election in November.
It is written in a very layman's, friendly way that means anyone will be able to follow along without being bogged down in insider political terms.
nomadreader's review against another edition
4.0
(Originally published at http://nomadreader.blogspot.com)
The backstory: With the 2012 U.S. presidential election heating up, I decided it was finally time to read a (recent) historical account of the 2008 election--because I often like a little distance from my politics to keep my emotions in check. As one of my favorite lines in this book says: so well "Obama smirked and reprised for Axelrod another of his favorite sayings: “This shit would be really interesting if we weren’t in the middle of it.”"
The basics: Game Change is a joint effort by John Heilemann, a political writer for New York magazine, and Mark Halperin, a political reporter for Time magazine. Both covered the 2008 election in depth at the time. In Game Change, they join forces, combine resources, and manage to interview hundreds of political operatives and campaign workers.
My thoughts: I devoured John Heilemann's coverage of the 2008 election. Typically when my New York arrives, I flip right to the Approval Matrix on the last page and then do the crossword. About once a month I get around to reading the magazine itself. During that election, however, I immediately read his coverage. 2008 was a special election for many reasons. On the grander scale, both the Republican and Democratic primaries were wide open. There was no incumbent and the current vice president opted not to run. More personally, Mr. Nomadreader and I moved to Des Moines (for the first time) in the summer of 2007. We worked at a brewpub downtown and waited on numerous politicians running for president. We went to see many of the candidates early on at open forums with only a hundred people. It was intimate campaigning in a way I'd never seen, and it was infectious. Despite my intentions to keep an open mind and not pick a candidate too soon, I did. We were even pictured in campaign literature for one of the candidates before the January 2008 primary.
All of this is to say: reading the first part of the book about the Iowa caucuses was fascinating. I was here; I lived it. Yet Heilemann and Halperin made it seem new. There's an art to writing about politics in the moment, and Heilemann proved he can do that during the election. It's a different art to write about politics in a historical context. I would argue it's perhaps most difficult to write about politics in a recent historical context. That Game Change reads like a smart pulp novel is a testament to both the writers and the wackiness of the 2008 presidential election. They grasped the eccentricities of Iowa politics beautifully: "Democrats in Iowa were decidedly liberal, with a peacenik streak." The Republicans tend to be social conservatives (as evidenced by the last two Iowa caucus winners: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.) And then there are a lot of Iowans who are moderate swing voters. It's a fascinating political climate.
After the action moved on from the Iowa caucuses, the book lagged only slightly before picking up steam again. The entire primary race riveted me in 2008, but I had a new perspective on the timeline. While I recalled all of the events well, I didn't recall their order as precisely or understand the pending ramifications.
The general election was even more intriguing and mind-boggling. The Sarah Palin storyline actually was more shocking when reading it context. At the time, there seemed to be confusion, but with fours years distance, her ignorance is somehow even more shocking and terrifying:
While neither John Edwards nor Sarah Palin are painted in a particularly positive light, I think the portrayals of the political figures were just. Watching John Edwards break down slowly was even more fascinating because I knew the ending.I may have my preferences, but I grinned as much as I grimaced at the words and actions of the candidate for whom I voted.
Favorite passage: The single most shocking passage in the entire book: "In the midst of the financial crisis, she said to a friend, “God wants him to win.”" -Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama
The verdict: Game Change is a fascinating glimpse into American presidential politics. It's simultaneously inspiring, frustrating, and sleazy. I enjoyed the parts vivid in my memory as much as I did those I didn't know or had forgotten. In 2008, I couldn't help but think "that can't really true, can it?" In Game Change it's clear truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Recommended to political junkies and casual observers.
The backstory: With the 2012 U.S. presidential election heating up, I decided it was finally time to read a (recent) historical account of the 2008 election--because I often like a little distance from my politics to keep my emotions in check. As one of my favorite lines in this book says: so well "Obama smirked and reprised for Axelrod another of his favorite sayings: “This shit would be really interesting if we weren’t in the middle of it.”"
The basics: Game Change is a joint effort by John Heilemann, a political writer for New York magazine, and Mark Halperin, a political reporter for Time magazine. Both covered the 2008 election in depth at the time. In Game Change, they join forces, combine resources, and manage to interview hundreds of political operatives and campaign workers.
My thoughts: I devoured John Heilemann's coverage of the 2008 election. Typically when my New York arrives, I flip right to the Approval Matrix on the last page and then do the crossword. About once a month I get around to reading the magazine itself. During that election, however, I immediately read his coverage. 2008 was a special election for many reasons. On the grander scale, both the Republican and Democratic primaries were wide open. There was no incumbent and the current vice president opted not to run. More personally, Mr. Nomadreader and I moved to Des Moines (for the first time) in the summer of 2007. We worked at a brewpub downtown and waited on numerous politicians running for president. We went to see many of the candidates early on at open forums with only a hundred people. It was intimate campaigning in a way I'd never seen, and it was infectious. Despite my intentions to keep an open mind and not pick a candidate too soon, I did. We were even pictured in campaign literature for one of the candidates before the January 2008 primary.
All of this is to say: reading the first part of the book about the Iowa caucuses was fascinating. I was here; I lived it. Yet Heilemann and Halperin made it seem new. There's an art to writing about politics in the moment, and Heilemann proved he can do that during the election. It's a different art to write about politics in a historical context. I would argue it's perhaps most difficult to write about politics in a recent historical context. That Game Change reads like a smart pulp novel is a testament to both the writers and the wackiness of the 2008 presidential election. They grasped the eccentricities of Iowa politics beautifully: "Democrats in Iowa were decidedly liberal, with a peacenik streak." The Republicans tend to be social conservatives (as evidenced by the last two Iowa caucus winners: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.) And then there are a lot of Iowans who are moderate swing voters. It's a fascinating political climate.
After the action moved on from the Iowa caucuses, the book lagged only slightly before picking up steam again. The entire primary race riveted me in 2008, but I had a new perspective on the timeline. While I recalled all of the events well, I didn't recall their order as precisely or understand the pending ramifications.
The general election was even more intriguing and mind-boggling. The Sarah Palin storyline actually was more shocking when reading it context. At the time, there seemed to be confusion, but with fours years distance, her ignorance is somehow even more shocking and terrifying:
"Palin couldn’t explain why North and South Korea were separate nations. She didn’t know what the Fed did. Asked who attacked America on 9/11, she suggested several times that it was Saddam Hussein. Asked to identify the enemy that her son would be fighting in Iraq, she drew a blank. (Palin’s horrified advisers provided her with scripted replies, which she memorized.) Later, on the plane, Palin said to her team, “I wish I’d paid more attention to this stuff.”"
While neither John Edwards nor Sarah Palin are painted in a particularly positive light, I think the portrayals of the political figures were just. Watching John Edwards break down slowly was even more fascinating because I knew the ending.I may have my preferences, but I grinned as much as I grimaced at the words and actions of the candidate for whom I voted.
Favorite passage: The single most shocking passage in the entire book: "In the midst of the financial crisis, she said to a friend, “God wants him to win.”" -Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama
The verdict: Game Change is a fascinating glimpse into American presidential politics. It's simultaneously inspiring, frustrating, and sleazy. I enjoyed the parts vivid in my memory as much as I did those I didn't know or had forgotten. In 2008, I couldn't help but think "that can't really true, can it?" In Game Change it's clear truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Recommended to political junkies and casual observers.
ericwelch's review against another edition
5.0
This book is in the tradition of Theodore White's great Making of a President series, which I devoured years ago as soon as they appeared, on the inside story of presidential campaigns. This one is just as good, high praise, indeed.
Another great example of how we are failed by the media and need to learn details a coujple of years after the fact. Fascinating details such as how many Senators were urging Obama to run. The field looked weak. Edwards was considered shallow, Gofre was not interested, no one else particularly strong around except Hillary and they were terrified because if she had gotten the nomination, all the increasingly common rumors of Bill's continued infidelities would surface. Not to mention her vote on the war. It was also clear that her campaign staff, while very loyal, was not as good as one would have liked.
Clearly, the Clinton campaign presumed to believe the nomination was theirs, and Hillary had even put together a transition staff already in October of 2007. The only thing, she believed standing in their way was Iowa, and they didn't expect to lose that state. Axelrod believed correctly that Mark Penn, Clinton's campaign manager, was locked into a strategy borrowed from the 1990 succesful campaign and wqould be unable to change even though times had changed drstically.
Iowa was a game changer: Obama slaughterd the opposition and Huckabee came out of nowhere to beat the other front-runners. Clinton had spent more than $23 million on Iowa, more than $500,00 per vote obtained. It was also becoming abundantly clear that two major factors were preventing Hillary from doing better: her dysfunctional campaign that she seemed unable to organize or control; and Bill, an out-of-control ex-president who could not bear the idea of being out of the limelight. Hillary had difficulty dealing with personnel issues and was reluctant to deal with problems directly (one wonders how that might have translated to her administration had she won.) In fact, when a staffer asked her to deal with Bill and control him, she wanted to delegate that to someone else, arguing she couldn't do it.
All of the candidates assiduously courted the Kennedy endorsement. They had long ties to the Clintons, but Edward Kennedy and his family were charmed by the similarities Obama had to their fallen icon JFK: the hope, the charisma, the intelligence, and wonderful speech-making. Bill Clinton, on one of his trips to the Kennedy compound to gain support, nailed his own -- and his wife's -- chances for success, by remarking during a discussion with Teddy refering to Obama's age, and perhaps totally losing any subconscious symbolism, that "just a few years ago, that boy would have been serving us the coffee." That remark totally offended Edward Kennedy.
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign was suffering from a candidate who wasn't that popular with the Repoublican base and who knew it. "Why would I want to be the leader of a party of such assholes," he said. His stance on amnesty for undocumented workers was anathema to the right, and he had difficulty mustering any kind of enthusiam for a protracted campaign especially after what the Bush folks had done to him in South Carolina in 2000. At one point during a debate prep session, McCain was asked to explain the difference between same-sex marriage and civil unions. Tired of everything, he shouted, "I don't give a fuck." The choice of Palin was a last ditch, unplanned, and very unprepared for attempt at revival. He worked to some extent, energizing the base. But it also lost support for McCain from moderate Republicans, many of them long-time supporters of McCain, who saw the move as a slap in the face. They viewed her as clearly unprepared to be president, and, as one large campaign donor and long-time supporter of McCain explained his switch to Obama simply by saying: "Palin."
Another great example of how we are failed by the media and need to learn details a coujple of years after the fact. Fascinating details such as how many Senators were urging Obama to run. The field looked weak. Edwards was considered shallow, Gofre was not interested, no one else particularly strong around except Hillary and they were terrified because if she had gotten the nomination, all the increasingly common rumors of Bill's continued infidelities would surface. Not to mention her vote on the war. It was also clear that her campaign staff, while very loyal, was not as good as one would have liked.
Clearly, the Clinton campaign presumed to believe the nomination was theirs, and Hillary had even put together a transition staff already in October of 2007. The only thing, she believed standing in their way was Iowa, and they didn't expect to lose that state. Axelrod believed correctly that Mark Penn, Clinton's campaign manager, was locked into a strategy borrowed from the 1990 succesful campaign and wqould be unable to change even though times had changed drstically.
Iowa was a game changer: Obama slaughterd the opposition and Huckabee came out of nowhere to beat the other front-runners. Clinton had spent more than $23 million on Iowa, more than $500,00 per vote obtained. It was also becoming abundantly clear that two major factors were preventing Hillary from doing better: her dysfunctional campaign that she seemed unable to organize or control; and Bill, an out-of-control ex-president who could not bear the idea of being out of the limelight. Hillary had difficulty dealing with personnel issues and was reluctant to deal with problems directly (one wonders how that might have translated to her administration had she won.) In fact, when a staffer asked her to deal with Bill and control him, she wanted to delegate that to someone else, arguing she couldn't do it.
All of the candidates assiduously courted the Kennedy endorsement. They had long ties to the Clintons, but Edward Kennedy and his family were charmed by the similarities Obama had to their fallen icon JFK: the hope, the charisma, the intelligence, and wonderful speech-making. Bill Clinton, on one of his trips to the Kennedy compound to gain support, nailed his own -- and his wife's -- chances for success, by remarking during a discussion with Teddy refering to Obama's age, and perhaps totally losing any subconscious symbolism, that "just a few years ago, that boy would have been serving us the coffee." That remark totally offended Edward Kennedy.
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign was suffering from a candidate who wasn't that popular with the Repoublican base and who knew it. "Why would I want to be the leader of a party of such assholes," he said. His stance on amnesty for undocumented workers was anathema to the right, and he had difficulty mustering any kind of enthusiam for a protracted campaign especially after what the Bush folks had done to him in South Carolina in 2000. At one point during a debate prep session, McCain was asked to explain the difference between same-sex marriage and civil unions. Tired of everything, he shouted, "I don't give a fuck." The choice of Palin was a last ditch, unplanned, and very unprepared for attempt at revival. He worked to some extent, energizing the base. But it also lost support for McCain from moderate Republicans, many of them long-time supporters of McCain, who saw the move as a slap in the face. They viewed her as clearly unprepared to be president, and, as one large campaign donor and long-time supporter of McCain explained his switch to Obama simply by saying: "Palin."
booksinthemountains's review against another edition
4.0
Game Change is the type of book that is precisely a game change. This isn't the type of book I tend to read, not by a longshot but it doesn't read like a nonfiction book at all, it reads like a story but the thing is this is a true story. I am a democrat, and will always tend to associate with them. That said my opinion of Obama was completely altered by this book, and the lengths the Democratic party went to destroy Hillary's chance was pathetic. If you want great insight into what happened during the 2008 election, you must read it. I learned so much and I was simply shocked by behind the scenes stuff. Every night after I'd finish reading for the night it would spark serious conversation.
Insane. Read. Highly. Recommend.
Insane. Read. Highly. Recommend.
christinalepre's review against another edition
3.0
Fascinating inside look at the 2008 election. I've been meaning to read this for a while, and now that they're apparently adapting it into a 'Recount' style HBO movie/miniseries, and the 2012 race is kicking off, I knew it was time. I really enjoyed this book, though it pissed me off to learn that Bill Clinton ruined Hillary's chances with his overstepping during her campaign (among other thinly veiled insinuations about his personal life that were allegedly going to be used against her in the general election). McCain's campaign was even more crackerjack than I thought, and the Edwards stuff was just insane. Meanwhile, Obama surrounded himself with smart people, even though he didn't have much substance to his platforms at the time. The fact that he spent time learning about the financial markets and economy in order to fully understand what was happening during economic meltdown '08 and formulated a response that demonstrated this showed an openness to receiving important information from outsiders and admit when he didn't have an expertise in something, which isn't easy for any candidate to do. An insightful read if you have even a tangential interest in politics.
emilyw_hi's review against another edition
5.0
I decided to pick this up after watching The Circus and was completely enthralled by the narrative. I'd forgotten just how dramatic the Democratic primary had been in 2008 and loved reliving it. Great story and so interesting.
brien_k's review against another edition
3.0
A fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential election. Anyone interested in politics (especially the details not reported in the press) will probably enjoy this book. But if you do read it, be prepared to be more disheartened with our political system and candidates than you were before!