Book-It '10! Book #25
The Fifty Books Challenge, year two! This was a library request.
Title: Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
Details: Copyright 2010, Harper Collins
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "'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. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told.
In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country's leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, despite the thinness of his résumé, he could somehow beat the odds to become the nation's first African American president? How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape-and warp-Hillary's supposedly unstoppable bid? What was behind her husband's furious outbursts and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Palin merely painfully out of her depth-or troubled in more serious ways?
Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus." They unearth the quiet conspiracy in the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton's personal life might cripple Hillary's presidential prospects. They expose the twisted tale of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, the truth behind the downfall of Rudy Giuliani, and the doubts of those responsible for vetting Palin about her readiness for the Republican ticket-along with the McCain campaign staff's worries about her fitness for office. And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state.
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. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: This is apparently the must-read of the year. It's a bestseller and I heard it was fascinating.
How I Liked It: The book reads, appropriately enough, like a novel with a fascinating and expanding cast, both familiar and those made so by the authors. Back when A&E still meant "The Arts and Entertainment Network" and not "Crappy, Increasingly Obscure 'Reality' Shows", they had a tagline for their popular "Biography" program (which went on to spur a network of its own and apparently take any of A&E's cred with it): "The people you thought you knew." That saying never seems truer than in this book. It's fairly easy to write a juicy, tell-all book about famous figures, generally light or fact free, but Heilemann and Halperin have apparently done their homework meticulously. The book is spell-binding and full of jaw-dropping revelations (and some not-so-jaw-dropping revelations) and a wonderfully liberating candor that pries the celebutians from their media caricatures/personas and thrusts them into fascinatingly human form. I will not try to list even a few of the explosive revelations in this book for two reasons: one, as so not to spoil it for anyone intending to read this book (and I urge anyone with an interest in politics and/or any of the figures involved in the 2008 election) and two, because as incendiary as the behind-the-scenes juicy tidbits are, they are secondary to the narrative. It's the fact said tidbits are worked extremely engagingly (thus making them all the more interesting) into a strong story thread (if I can use a crappy analogy, think of it as a fine setting for a jewel, if you will) that as I said, reads like a particularly well-written, engrossing novel.
The book more than lives up to the hype and, I reiterate, is a must-read for anyone with an interest in politics, the 2008 election, and/or any of the figures involved therein. You'll be (as I already can tell I will, annoyingly) talking about this book for months.
Notable: John Edwards is rightfully and adroitly skewered in the book, along with what might be said to be the leading character (other than his ego, of course) in his downfall, his mistress Rielle Hunter. The book recalls Edwards's horrified staff who had to cope with her increasing presence:
"There was nothing legit, however, about Hunter's behavior. It was freaky, wildly inappropriate, and all too visible. She flirted outlandishly with every man she met. She spouted New Age babble, rambled on about astrology and reincarnation, and announced to people she had just met, 'I'm a witch.'" (pg 131)
Would all my fellow Pagans like to join me in a collective wince, for a number of reasons?
Title: Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
Details: Copyright 2010, Harper Collins
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "'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. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told.
In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country's leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, despite the thinness of his résumé, he could somehow beat the odds to become the nation's first African American president? How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape-and warp-Hillary's supposedly unstoppable bid? What was behind her husband's furious outbursts and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Palin merely painfully out of her depth-or troubled in more serious ways?
Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus." They unearth the quiet conspiracy in the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton's personal life might cripple Hillary's presidential prospects. They expose the twisted tale of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, the truth behind the downfall of Rudy Giuliani, and the doubts of those responsible for vetting Palin about her readiness for the Republican ticket-along with the McCain campaign staff's worries about her fitness for office. And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state.
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. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: This is apparently the must-read of the year. It's a bestseller and I heard it was fascinating.
How I Liked It: The book reads, appropriately enough, like a novel with a fascinating and expanding cast, both familiar and those made so by the authors. Back when A&E still meant "The Arts and Entertainment Network" and not "Crappy, Increasingly Obscure 'Reality' Shows", they had a tagline for their popular "Biography" program (which went on to spur a network of its own and apparently take any of A&E's cred with it): "The people you thought you knew." That saying never seems truer than in this book. It's fairly easy to write a juicy, tell-all book about famous figures, generally light or fact free, but Heilemann and Halperin have apparently done their homework meticulously. The book is spell-binding and full of jaw-dropping revelations (and some not-so-jaw-dropping revelations) and a wonderfully liberating candor that pries the celebutians from their media caricatures/personas and thrusts them into fascinatingly human form. I will not try to list even a few of the explosive revelations in this book for two reasons: one, as so not to spoil it for anyone intending to read this book (and I urge anyone with an interest in politics and/or any of the figures involved in the 2008 election) and two, because as incendiary as the behind-the-scenes juicy tidbits are, they are secondary to the narrative. It's the fact said tidbits are worked extremely engagingly (thus making them all the more interesting) into a strong story thread (if I can use a crappy analogy, think of it as a fine setting for a jewel, if you will) that as I said, reads like a particularly well-written, engrossing novel.
The book more than lives up to the hype and, I reiterate, is a must-read for anyone with an interest in politics, the 2008 election, and/or any of the figures involved therein. You'll be (as I already can tell I will, annoyingly) talking about this book for months.
Notable: John Edwards is rightfully and adroitly skewered in the book, along with what might be said to be the leading character (other than his ego, of course) in his downfall, his mistress Rielle Hunter. The book recalls Edwards's horrified staff who had to cope with her increasing presence:
"There was nothing legit, however, about Hunter's behavior. It was freaky, wildly inappropriate, and all too visible. She flirted outlandishly with every man she met. She spouted New Age babble, rambled on about astrology and reincarnation, and announced to people she had just met, 'I'm a witch.'" (pg 131)
Would all my fellow Pagans like to join me in a collective wince, for a number of reasons?