Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

Earlier this year, Jacob and I were inspired by this McSweeney's piece to think about presidential brawl brackets. (#1 seed Andrew Jackson wins, by the way.) It's not such a stretch to think of presidents in the melee scenario, once you start--and especially once you realize that each one of them had to smack down a variety of foes just to get to that cushy seat in the Oval Office. Some of those fights were more entertaining/historically significant than others, though. And even though Obama only made it to the second round or so in the Jacob-Kate bracket (#15 seed, sorry Mr. President), he triumphed in one of the craziest primary brawls ever in real life.

Enter Game Change, this season's hot political book on the 2008 Democratic primaries and the general election. Remember when we all thought nothing was gonna stop the Hilldawg train? Remember when McCain was counted out as an irrelevant old coot in the face of Romney's slickness and Rudy's 9/11 Yankee caps? Remember when we didn't know or care who Sarah Palin was? Well, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann do. And they go to great lengths to show us how all that fell apart.

This book is just as compulsively readable as you think it will be. Most of it is familiar ground--the public sniping, the rumors, the debates, the polls--but when it's pulled together into a single narrative, you realize anew how clusterf*cked the whole thing was, start to finish. Drawn out over two years, it was fascinating (and frightening) enough. But condensed and peppered with enough insider detail (many of the anecdotes are anonymously sourced), it's a powerful story of neuroses, one-upmanship, and inconceivable stakes.

The Obamas fare the best overall--particularly Michelle. Halperin and Heilemann make it clear that the Michelle we saw during the campaign (blunt, wry, and fiercely protective of her family) was the real thing. Obama doesn't take much of a hit either--he was more or less the candidate I thought he was. Cockiness and occasional insecurity are essentially the worst the book has to say about him.

And then there are the Clintons. Oh boy, there are the Clintons. I thought I was holding a lot of anger toward them after the primaries, but of course that was nothing compared to their ex-staffers, judging by what the anonymous birdies told the authors. And while it was interesting to get confirmation that Hillary's campaign was every bit as dysfunctional as it seemed on the outside, I ended up feeling more respect and pity than I expected. I still don't understand how someone who wanted something so badly and singlemindedly as she did had no real idea how to get it, if it wasn't handed to her as an inevitability. And even then, ambition can't overcome a staff of bickering jerks, a husband sabotaging everything (consciously or not), or a public reputation that's more Lady Macbeth than Margaret Thatcher.

Because the extended Hillary/Obama showdown is the heart of the book, the day-to-day of their respective campaigns is covered pretty exhaustively. But one aspect that barely comes up, surprisingly, is the Michigan/Florida fiasco. I don't know if the authors just didn't get juicy soundbites from anyone involved in that process or what, but I remember it being a more significant part of the Clinton campaign's death throes.

Bill Clinton takes a beating (usually, we save the revelations of ex-presidential jerkiness, p-word-hounding, and unpleasantness for the postmortem memoirs, right?). But that's nothing compared to the evisceration of the Edwardses. The book's biggest splash on release was its thorough dismantling of the Elizabeth Edwards-as-saintly-victim persona. Apparently she was neurotic, controlling, and prone to screaming jags. But the book's flagship Elizabeth anecdote (her in a parking garage with her husband, pleading him to "look at me" and ripping her shirt open) made me wince. The writers are clearly using it to portray her as unstable--but given what she'd been through with cancer and the then-recent revelations of John's total douchebaggery, pointing and laughing at her for that moment of hysteria seems awfully harsh.

Good thing her husband steps up to be revealed as the Worst Politician in the World. John Edwards gets to be Vanity Smurf, Baby Daddy Smurf, Delusional Smurf, and Laughingstock Smurf, all at once. The one noble-ish thing he's portrayed as doing/saying in the book is helping Obama out during a debate. And dropping out, I guess, though by then he was pretty much out by force, and still thinking he had a chance at VP. At this point, there's really not much else to do but laugh in disgust.

And then there are the Republicans. They're kind of an afterthought for the first two-thirds of Game Change, much as they were throughout most of 2008. McCain is a hothead. His wife is kinda mean, but essentially a decent person. No one vetted Palin. And Rudy may still be floating around Florida somewhere (his strategy still cracks me up).

And it all culminates on the night of November 4, 2008--which is still, hands down, one of the most amazing nights I've ever seen. But that's a little anticlimactic, 'cause we all know how that one turned out. The ending of the book is kinda weak: basically, "...and the Team of Rivals lived happily ever after." But I don't know how else you'd write that ending, really. I'm just glad it wasn't "to be continued."

Some of my favorite parts:

On chasing Ted Kennedy's endorsement: "Bill Clinton took the opposite tack: he got up in Ted's grille. In a series of follow-up calls, Clinton went from arguing heatedly to pleading desperately with Kennedy. (At one point, Kennedy told a friend, Clinton went so far as to say, 'I love you'--a declaration that Kennedy rendered mockingly in a Boston-Irish imitation of Clinton's Arkansas twang.)"

On chasing Gore's endorsement: "There was much Gore found attractive about Obama...and he could scarcely say the same about the Clintons. His relationship with Hillary had been strained and hostile since their White House years, when she and Gore were, in effect, co-vice presidents, competing for power and influence. (Gore felt he had less of both than Hillary; the Clintons neither disagreed nor cared.)"

Obama on McCain, during their senator days: "'The tone of [McCain's] letter, I think, was a little over the top,' he said. 'But John McCain's been an American hero and has served here in Washington for twenty years, so if he wants to get cranky once in a while, that's his prerogative.'
Did you just call McCain 'cranky'? a reporter asked.
'You got my quote the first time,' Obama said tartly. Back in his office, Obama was blunter with his aides about his sentiments. 'I'm not interested in being bitch-slapped by John McCain,' he said."

On Biden: "Sitting outside by the pool, Biden reassured them that he could keep his mouth in check, cited examples of how he'd done it before, promised he could do it again. In talking about how he could control his talking, Biden kept talking and talking--offering a soliloquy that, had it been a one-man play, might have been titled QED."

On Palin: "She also continued to stumble over an unavoidable element: her rival's name. Over and over, Palin referred to Obama's running mate as 'Senator Obiden'--or was it 'O'Biden'?--and the corrections from her team weren't sticking. Finally, three staffers, practically in unison, suggested, Why don't you just call him Joe?
Palin stared at them quizically and said, 'But I've never met him.'"