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Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime |  | Authors: John Heilemann, Mark Halperin
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.99
Buy New: $14.49
as of 3/10/2010 23:02 CST details
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Seller: Hawaii Store
Rating:  524 reviews
Sales Rank: 32
Media: Hardcover
Edition: X
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7
ISBN: 0061733636
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.932
EAN: 9780061733635
ASIN: 0061733636
Publication Date: January 1, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780061733635 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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| Also Available In:
| • | Paperback - Game Change LP: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime | | • | Kindle Edition - Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime | | • | Paperback - Heilemann's, Halperin's Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime | | • | Unknown Binding - Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (Hardcover) | | • | Unknown Binding - Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (LARGE PRINT) [LP] (PAPERBACK) | | • | Audio Download - Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (Unabridged) |
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Product Description
"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it."
Barack Obama, September 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 524
 hard to put down March 11, 2010
although you know the outcome the stories of what happened behind the scenes of both campaigns were enthralling
 Nothing New March 9, 2010
Anne L. Mendoza
Game Change is a big, overpriced bore. The hype promised delicious new morsels of political gossip and failed to deliver. Details are few and the book is really nothing more than a series of snapshots. In particular, general character assessments are offered without the supporting details. For example, the authors report that John Edwards was dismissed as an empty suit by party Brahmins long before the 2008 campaign. The authors do not explain the basis of this widely held opinion. Nor do they offer any details.
 The Making of the President 2008 March 9, 2010
G. Ware Cornell Jr. (Weston FL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Forty eight years after the race depicted in Teddy White's masterful The Making of the President 1960 (Harper Perennial Political Classics) we are given the second best inside look at a modern presidential campaign. From dreams to forays around the country to caucuses and handlers, aspiring candidates pressed forward trying desperately to stave off elimination as their poll numbers plunged or surged depending on events far beyond their ability to control. In the end there should have been only two that mattered, Obama and McCain but even those finalists were buffeted by external events.
Is this any way to pick a President? Had the founding fathers foreseen television, campaign jets and Saturday Night Live, perhaps we might have a king instead.
The fun part of this book, starts and ends with Sarah Palin, who does nothing to enhance her public perception, But it is the pre-Palin accounts, centered around amitious politicians all convinced that their time has come, which give this book its flavor.
OBAMA'S PEOPLE CIRCLED THE WAGONS AROUND HIM FOR THIS BOOK--THE OTHER CANDIDATES WEREN'T SO LUCKY March 9, 2010
Mike (Redondo Beach, CA United States)
The one thing glaringly lacking in this interesting page-turner was the candor of Obama's inner circle with the authors. Every pock, flaw, defect, character failing, ill-temperament, intellectual short-coming, emotional disturbance, ego trip and failure of sound judgment by every other candidate (and often their spouses) from the 2008 race is found here, whether Hillary Clinton, McCain, Palin, Biden, Edwards, Giuliani or Romney but nothing about Barack or Michelle Obama's blemishes. One must conclude that either Obama is possessed of a singularly flawless character and temperament, whose biggest failing is that he didn't debate well in the Democratic primary, or that Obama's people the authors consulted simply refused to give up the goods and painted only the most rose-colored glasses insider's portrait they could concoct about their man.
But this would be no surprise really. The spoils always goes to the victor in politics and that includes the victor always being protected and insulated by the people around them from the light of media scrutiny, at least for a time, while the vanquished are always surrounded by axe grinders just chomping at the bit to achieve catharsis by trashing their former employers. The first casualty of defeat is always loyalty.
The authors seem a bit protective of and entirely too dazzled by the president as well in what should have been a more dispassionate exercise. They never really explore the relationship between Obama and the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, which is much deeper than they will allow, and content to accept the Obama campaign's spin about Ayers merely being an "acquaintance" when an examination of the history of that relationship puts the lie to that claim. Can you imagine these writers or anyone else in the journalistic media cutting so much slack to John McCain if he had kicked off his campaign in the home of an abortion clinic bomber or worked with him on an education initiative to indoctrinate students in extreme ideology? They are also all too willing to accept Obama's attempts to put Rev. Wright at arm's distance after many years spent embracing him simply because they were so clearly enamored with Obama's speech on race, which may have been eloquent and effective but in the end was still a political expedient.
Regardless of these flaws, the book is a very readable and user friendly insider scoop that will keep you fascinated on nearly every page. The deeply hidden insider secrets of nearly all the candidates and their private as versus public characters is on full display here (again, save for I believe Obama's).
Most disturbing is the portrait painted of Sarah Palin. She is shown to be vapid, lacking in heft, ignorant of history and the world around her and emotionally unprepared for higher office. I sympathize with how going from a relatively quiet governorship in Alaska where she was able to be with family most days to a nationwide, high speed, high stake circus far from her baby and loved ones and in front of a constant media firing squad must have wrecked havoc on her emotionally. But that being the case, perhaps she should reconsider any national aspirations in 2012. While the behind the scenes of Palin isn't pretty, and she is not someone I will ever support for the GOP nomination, it must be said the media's evisceration of her was unseemly, unprofessional, partisan and frankly indecent--especially knowing how little scrutiny was given the many problems in Obama's far left record and friendships in his past or Biden's many clownish moments (all the while being crowned by the media as having "gravitas.") This is not a woman guilty of some gross abuse deserving of the media's fiercest opprobrium. Let's face it--her biggest sin was telling the truth about Obama and the damage left wing policies have done to the nation.
One additional questionable thing about the book is the authors' seeming willingness to accept certain left wing articles of faith such as referring to Obama critics in talk radio, the blogosphere and elsewhere as "the right wing freak show" and unquestioningly accepting that the Bush presidency was disastrous as if all the difficulties that arose on the former president's watch were all Bush's doing--while ignoring the often successful conclusion or at least handling of these challenges under Bush's leadership. Perhaps these conceits were simply meant to portray the thoughts of the Democrats being discussed.
Additionally near the end of the book scorn is heaped on McCain for unleashing "dark forces" through his supposedly negative campaign (one which never put Ayers, Wright or even Obama's far left Senate voting record to much use) while glossing over the Obama campaign's uglier moments like mocking McCain's war injuries that disable him from holding his arms in a position that allows use of a computer keyboard (with one Obama aide said to have even mimicked McCain's disabled physical bearing) or the way in which it was clear Obama flipped the bird to Hillary at the end of the primary and again later at McCain at the end of their contest. The audience clearly knew what Obama was doing both times as they roared in approval with Obama's smug smirk betraying what he was up to. Yet the authors never speak about the extreme partisanship evident from Democrats during the campaign against Bush, McCain and Republicans nor McCain's very classy concession speech.
But ultimately for anyone wanting an engrossing and fast paced account of the 2008 race, this is worthy read. The book doesn't get bogged down in a lot of tedious biography or historical background like a number of other 2008 race books I've started--and left unfinished--have done. And the book never goes long before pulling another fascinating revelation onto the stage. I think the book's credibility would be enhanced if the authors had acknowledged what to me was fairly obvious--that Obama's people simply were not candid in sharing the worst about their candidate as were the sources relevant to the other candidates. It creates a real dissonance of very jarring revelations about everyone else juxtaposed against Obama being portrayed largely in only the most flattering of light. If you can overlook this lack in the narrative and the sometimes thinly guised bias and occasional forays into Obama fawning, this book will not disappoint.
Game Change:Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime March 8, 2010
C. (central Wisconsin)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was new and arrived on time. The book was a great read and the authors claim that the material is authentic.
If it is the information is juicy, offering a picture of all the players and how they proceeded through the last
presidental campaign with no holds barred. The book was easy to read and perhaps presented TOO much insite into the
candidates, but it was a fascinating book that I could not put down.
Carol
Showing reviews 1-5 of 524
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