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Book on 2008 Election is a Tell All Account
By: Avery Zimmerman
Wayne State University
COM2100, April 12, 2019
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
HarperCollins
Jan. 11, 2010
448 pages
$16.99
“Game Change” by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann shows the intricacies
behind running for president, but focuses more on anonymous gossip than explaining campaign
strategies.
The 2008 presidential election was “blockbuster entertainment” according to Halperin
and Heilemann, whose goal was to pull back the curtain on an election that produced a media
frenzy.
The co-authors succeeded in offering a closer look, but it was more about the personal
qualms and anxieties of the presidential candidates and not of the campaigns as a whole.
The book was heavily focused on the Democrat primary, with two thirds of the book
dedicated to the struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and only the remaining
third dedicated to the Republican primary and general election.
The book did well in following the candidates from before the Iowa caucus, the unofficial
start to a presidential campaign, all the way to declaring the winner on election night. Tracking
the formation of the campaign teams and running platforms to picking running partners and post-
election decisions.
However, more information on the Republican candidates and primaries as well as the
general election is needed. While reading this book it’s easy to forget the election was actually
between Obama and John McCain, not Obama and Clinton.
The campaign platforms took a backseat to gossip between industry and political
professionals. The general public was rarely mentioned, unless it was when discussing polling
data for the candidates.
The book frequently mentioned how political professionals considered Obama to be a
sort of phenomenon. Particularly Clinton’s chief strategist Mike Penn, who is mentioned in the
book as having said “phenomenon need to be quashed early.”
The co-authors did not provide a definition for phenomenon or an investigation into what
it was about Obama that made him special and why exactly he resonated with so many people.
Instead, the co-authors decided to include comments from many active politicians citing their
confusion of Obama’s popularity.
The only explanation for Obama’s rise to political fame is a quote from Clinton after she
conceded, “God wants him to win.”
The co-authors focus much of the book on how the media affected the presidential
campaign. They often referred to media stereotypes that plagued the candidates, particularly
Clinton.
But the book does little to move away from these stereotypes. One of these was that Bill
Clinton would be too much of a distraction to the media that it would take away from Hillary
Clinton’s campaign.
Despite this, the co-authors dedicate long sections of the book to Bill Clinton’s
contributions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, even highlighting personal phone conversations,
specific speeches and his relationship to Obama.
The big problem that comes from the book is the lack of attribution. The co-authors set
up strange narrative situations that present information which seems almost impossible for the
co-authors to know.
One particular example is a narrative of a private conversation between Bill and Hillary
Clinton on a beach in Anguilla.
“They leapt into the water, swam up to the beach, and then Hillary posed the question,”
the book said. “What should I do, Bill? She asked.”
Writing these moments in the form of a narrative leaves the readers wondering who gave
them this information. In fact, most of the book is made up of paraphrasing sources, but no
source name is given.
The only attribution found in the book is in a disclaimer from the author’s note before the
book starts.
“The majority of the material in these pages was taken from over three hundred
interviews with over two hundred people,” write the co-authors. “We agreed not to identify the
subjects as sources in any way.”
Without the name of the sources, and the consequential credibility of the person, the
readers are left wondering how accurate the statements asserted actually are. Was this statement
made by a senior staffer? Or just someone who happened to overhear a conversation? The
readers are left to rely on trusting that the co-authors aren’t giving false information.
All in all, the book is a good read. The writing is easy to follow and free of any political
jargon. It does well explaining the personal lives and gossip surrounding the political candidates,
but it’s not a book for readers who want an in-depth look at the policies and political functioning
of a campaign.
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