Book Review: Double Down - Game Change 2012
Authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, who chronicled the 2008 election of Barack Obama in their bestseller Game Change, once again team up to retrace the path of the candidates in the 2012 US Presidential election in Double Down: Game Change 2012. Based on hundreds of conversations with the candidates, leading members of the campaign staffs and with other political movers and shakers, the authors repeat the formula used in their previous book to once again give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the strategic planning and management of the Democratic and Republican 2012 election campaigns.
The titular theme of "double down" is based on the notion that both campaigns repeated strategies which had worked for them previously, with differing results. For incumbent President Barack Obama, an aggressive attack on his opponent's adherence to conservative economic policy was used with greater force to portray his opponent as someone out of touch with the challenges faced by average Americans. In much the same way that Obama had tried to saddle his 2008 opponent John McCain with the economic failures of the Bush administration, the authors show how the 2012 Obama campaign once again tried to portray their Republican opponent as an out-of-touch, rich, vulture capitalist, turning Mitt Romney's strength as an successful businessman into a liability. For Mitt Romney, it is the candidate's refusal to be portrayed as a "flip-flopper" that causes him to "double down" on some of the conservative policies that enabled him to emerge victorious in a nomination fight among a host of right wing opponents, but which hurt him in the general election campaign and which results in a number of unfortunate gaffes.
The book begins with a look at the position of the candidates going into the election campaign. For Obama, he has the advantage of not having to win a nomination, but is faced with a sluggish economy and an inability to work with congress. For Romney, the book follows his road to win his party's nomination, one in which he is seen as the candidate with the most electability after other leading lights in the party decide not to seek the presidency, but he is viewed by many in his party as a less than satisfactory choice. The book follows the ups and downs of both campaigns, including the effect of events such as two Supreme Court decisions (one on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the other on the place of Super PACs), the heated battle for the GOP nomination, the Obama campaign's strategic use of attack ads between the time of Romney's securing the nomination and the conventions, the planning and staging of the conventions, the debates, the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, and Hurricane Sandy. While there is no Sarah Palin to liven the book up as in Game Change, a couple of interesting relationships are explored with delightful insight and analysis: that between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and that between Mitt Romney and Chris Christie.
The authors take an objective look at what went right and what went wrong for both camps, and there is plenty of each. This is not the best post-mortem book on the 2012 election (that honor goes to Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America by Dan Balz, reviewed here), but the authors of this book write in an enjoyable style of 21st century hip prose that is neither too pedantic nor a dumbing down of its subject matter. This book is not as good as Game Change, and it doesn't contain many surprises or shocking revelations about the candidates or their campaigns. Then again, perhaps it's just that, after reading two previous books about this election, I've had my fill of it and am just jonesing for some good antebellum or golden age history. Whatever it's shortcomings, this is still a very good recap of Obama vs. Romney, told by a couple of very talented reporters and authors. Don't expect an HBO movie from this book, but it's still very good history of Obama vs. Romney.
The titular theme of "double down" is based on the notion that both campaigns repeated strategies which had worked for them previously, with differing results. For incumbent President Barack Obama, an aggressive attack on his opponent's adherence to conservative economic policy was used with greater force to portray his opponent as someone out of touch with the challenges faced by average Americans. In much the same way that Obama had tried to saddle his 2008 opponent John McCain with the economic failures of the Bush administration, the authors show how the 2012 Obama campaign once again tried to portray their Republican opponent as an out-of-touch, rich, vulture capitalist, turning Mitt Romney's strength as an successful businessman into a liability. For Mitt Romney, it is the candidate's refusal to be portrayed as a "flip-flopper" that causes him to "double down" on some of the conservative policies that enabled him to emerge victorious in a nomination fight among a host of right wing opponents, but which hurt him in the general election campaign and which results in a number of unfortunate gaffes.
The book begins with a look at the position of the candidates going into the election campaign. For Obama, he has the advantage of not having to win a nomination, but is faced with a sluggish economy and an inability to work with congress. For Romney, the book follows his road to win his party's nomination, one in which he is seen as the candidate with the most electability after other leading lights in the party decide not to seek the presidency, but he is viewed by many in his party as a less than satisfactory choice. The book follows the ups and downs of both campaigns, including the effect of events such as two Supreme Court decisions (one on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the other on the place of Super PACs), the heated battle for the GOP nomination, the Obama campaign's strategic use of attack ads between the time of Romney's securing the nomination and the conventions, the planning and staging of the conventions, the debates, the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, and Hurricane Sandy. While there is no Sarah Palin to liven the book up as in Game Change, a couple of interesting relationships are explored with delightful insight and analysis: that between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and that between Mitt Romney and Chris Christie.
The authors take an objective look at what went right and what went wrong for both camps, and there is plenty of each. This is not the best post-mortem book on the 2012 election (that honor goes to Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America by Dan Balz, reviewed here), but the authors of this book write in an enjoyable style of 21st century hip prose that is neither too pedantic nor a dumbing down of its subject matter. This book is not as good as Game Change, and it doesn't contain many surprises or shocking revelations about the candidates or their campaigns. Then again, perhaps it's just that, after reading two previous books about this election, I've had my fill of it and am just jonesing for some good antebellum or golden age history. Whatever it's shortcomings, this is still a very good recap of Obama vs. Romney, told by a couple of very talented reporters and authors. Don't expect an HBO movie from this book, but it's still very good history of Obama vs. Romney.