Game Change by Mark Halperin and John heilemann

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Unapologetically gossipy play-by-play of the 2008 primaries and general. Written so engagingly that it made me anxious at a few points, even though, hi, it’s not like I don’t know the spoilers. But this is entirely a trees book and not at all a forest book, despite the title and marketing. This is all day-by-day campaign strategy and not at all chronicle of the monetary/demographic/electronic/organizational revolutions that arguably occurred and are still occurring. Surprising, because when you talk to Halperin face-to-face, he’s all forest and no trees, in a really good way.*

But whatever, maybe it was too soon, maybe everyone was still living in it too much to see out of it when they conducted their interviews. And their access really is unparalleled. And if what you want is a heaping scoop of relatively reliable personality dissection with campaign strategy as a side dish, you honestly can’t do better than this. It’s just, you know, more about how the Clintons sabotage/make/unmake/worship each other, and less about the seachange that 2008 actually was.

*Though Halperin did insist in my hearing once that Romney is honestly a great guy one-on-one, not at all awkward or uncomfortable or bizarre the way he is on camera. Oookay. It’d probably take an entire new book to convince me of that.



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