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By Diana O’Neill
“This shit would be really interesting if we weren’t in the middle of it.” – Barack Obama, September 2008, just only a few months before taking office as the first African-American president of the United States.
Diana O'Neill
What will likely go down as one of the most controversial, celebrated and memorable elections of our time, the 2008 presidential campaign was nothing short of riveting for Americans and the world alike.
As with any media-crazed event documented in our drama-hungry society, the election offered up a dazzling array of interview blunders, debate stumbles and red-hot scandals. And that was only what was on TV, in the papers, or blogged and tweeted about; nevermind the discussions and secrets that were spilled behind closed doors.
Two of America’s leading political reporters, John Heilemann (New York magazine) and Mark Halperin (Time Magazine and ABC news), took advantage of their exclusive access and insider connections to reveal all in their much-talked about book, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.
HBO is already working on producing a movie adaptation, based on this behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential election from the mouths of the candidates and their respective camps.
This is a fascinating book that is bound to leave you with a visceral sense of what actually happened in that election and exactly what all players were really thinking.
No one is innocent in this well-researched and compulsively page-turning account. As Ben Smith, former aide to the Clinton campaign said, “Everybody talked. Anybody that tells you they didn’t is lying to you.”
Collaboratively, Halperin and Heilemann provide some riveting insight into what happened before, during and after the campaign. Using their unparalleled access, these mainstream journalists are able to answer some questions still circulating a year after Obama’s inauguration.
Did McCain really think the inexperienced and often-parodied Alaskan mayor, Sarah Palin, was ready to be in office? Is it true that Obama wooed Hillary Clinton in a late-night phone call, pleading for her to accept the vice-president bid? At just over 400 pages, Game Change offers occasionally funny and often shocking dialogue, and is loaded with detailed scenes based on hundreds of interviews and off-the-record conversations; this non-fiction story reads like any fast-paced political tinged drama would.
Halperin’s and Heilemann’s literary portrayal of how the memorable 2008 election unfolded, picks up where most of us were left sitting gripped to our TV’s, wanting to know more. This is history in the making and judging by the intense media buzz prior to this book’s release, Game Change will definitely be the not-to-miss political expose of 2010.
Diana O’Neill is just shy of her three-year anniversary of working in the independent book selling industry. Her full-time job (if you can call it that) allows her unlimited access to any title you can possibly dream of reading and currently she writes monthly reviews for other publications in the Okanagan. She will read anything with words, but really cares for the non-fiction variety, especially edgy or quirky topics that are bound to stir discussion. O’Neill is a graduate of the Conestoga College Journalism – Print and Broadcast program, in Kitchener, Ont.
Tags: book review, game change, Mosaic Books, Read All Over
