Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
John Heilemann, Mark Halperin
Language: English
Pages: 456
ISBN: 0061733644
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“It’s one of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22.” —The Financial Times
“It transports you to a parallel universe in which everything in the National Enquirer is true….More interesting is what we learn about the candidates themselves: their frailties, egos and almost super-human stamina.” —The Financial Times
“I can’t put down this book!” —Stephen Colbert
Game Change is the New York Times bestselling story of the 2008 presidential election, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the best political reporters in the country. In the spirit of Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes and Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1960, this classic campaign trail book tells the defining story of a new era in American politics, going deeper behind the scenes of the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin campaigns than any other account of the historic 2008 election.
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next, his life was swept up in a whirlwind of nearly unfathomable force. His oration at the Democratic convention—with its stirring calls to unity and common purpose, its rejection of false distinctions between red and blue America, its rejection of “the politics of cynicism” and embrace of “the politics of hope”—had not only struck a chord with countless Democrats but turned him into a worldwide celebrity. Suddenly, Obama was recognized everywhere he went. Crowds waited for him outside his
kinds of people who crowded ten deep along her rope lines now, the women and men screaming, crying, brandishing countless items for her to autograph: T-shirts, books (Living History), pink boxing gloves, crumpled cocktail napkins. (She always signed simply “Hillary.”) As she’d located her groove on the campaign trail, she’d begun inspiring great passion and devotion in her fans, and it meant the world to her. These people, her supporters, millions of them, wanted her to stay in. So did two of
Jarrett advised the new president-elect, “because you can’t just fire her.” Obama listened to the objections and more or less dismissed them. Sure, he needed to sit with Clinton and get comfortable. Sure, the Bill problem needed to be dealt with. But Obama shared none of his brain trust’s lingering animus over the campaign. It was time to saddle up and get down to governing—and he saw Clinton as an invaluable asset. He told his quailing advisers to keep their eyes on the prize. More than once he
and observed that, back in 1972, he’d worked for another supposedly inevitable Democratic candidate. “How many of you ever shook hands,” Ickes asked, “with President Ed Muskie?” But Clinton was happy prosecuting a front-runner’s campaign. She liked being seen as formidable and imposing. She had no taste for softening her image or for pandering to the base. She appreciated that Penn always had an eye on the general election, because she expected to end up there. Really, who was going to stop her?
the day care programs, the work with prisoners, the encouragement of HIV/AIDS testing—all the kinds of things that would have appealed to a young community organizer. Obama liked the admixture of working-class and buppie congregants at the church. He was impressed by Wright’s reputation as a biblical scholar and had been inspired by his oratory; he had lifted the title of The Audacity of Hope from one of Wright’s sermons. And although Obama considered the words that were causing the current