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    Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
    Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
    Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
    Audiobook14 hours

    Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

    Written by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

    Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    “It’s one of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22.” —The Financial Times

     

    “It transports you to a parallel universe in which everything in the National Enquirer is true….More interesting is what we learn about the candidates themselves: their frailties, egos and almost super-human stamina.” —The Financial Times

     

    “I can’t put down this book!” —Stephen Colbert

     

    Game Change is the New York Times bestselling story of the 2008 presidential election, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the best political reporters in the country. In the spirit of Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes and Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1960, this classic campaign trail book tells the defining story of a new era in American politics, going deeper behind the scenes of the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin campaigns than any other account of the historic 2008 election.

    Editor's Note

    Political drama...

    A deep dive into political drama, every key player is covered in this behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 Presidential election. The authors craft a thoroughly engrossing narrative, and spill secrets on both sides of the aisle.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJan 11, 2010
    ISBN9780061953736
    Author

    John Heilemann

    John Heilemann, national political correspondent and columnist for New York, is an award-winning journalist and the author of Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era.

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    Reviews for Game Change

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    • 5/5
      Enjoyed this challenge of discipleship to Jesus as the very heart of the gospel, and these favorite quotes:
      More than any other single thing, in any case, the practical irrelevance of actual obedience to Christ accounts for the weakened effect of Christianity on the world today, with its increasing tendency to emphasize political and social action as the primary way to serve God. It also accounts for the practical irrelevance of Christian faith to individual character development and overall personal sanity and well-being.
      "The command 'Be ye perfect' is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command." C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
      Kingdom praying and its efficacy is entirely a matter of the innermost heart's being totally open and honest before God. It is not an informational but intimate communion with the one who truly knows our needs It is a matter of what we are saying with our whole being, moving with resolute intent and clarity of mind into the flow of God's action. In apprenticeship to Jesus, this is one of the most important things we learn how to do. He teaches us how to be in prayer what we are in life and how to be in life what we are in prayer.
      "The discipline of secrecy will help us break the grip of human opinion over our souls and our actions. A discipline is an activity in our power that we do to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort. Jesus is here leading us into the discipline of secrecy. We from time to time practice doing things approved of in our religious circles – giving, praying, fasting, attending services of the church, and so on – but in such a way that no one knows. Thus, our motivation and reward for doing these things cannot come from human beings. We are liberated from slavery to eyes, and then it does not matter whether people know or not. We learn to live constantly in this way."
      "The adult members of churches today rarely raise serious religious questions for fear of revealing their doubts or being thought of as strange. There is an implicit conspiracy of silence on religious matters in the churches. This conspiracy covers up the fact that the churches do not change lives or influence conduct to any appreciable degree." Clyde Reid
      Prayer is a matter of explicitly sharing with God my concerns about what he too is concerned about in my life. And of course he is concerned about my concerns and, in particular, that my concerns should coincide with his. This is our walk together. Out of it I pray.
      Prayer as kingdom praying is an arrangement explicitly instituted by God in order that we as individuals may count, and count for much, as we learn step by step how to govern, to reign with him in his kingdom. To enter and to learn this reign is what gives the individual life its intended significance. This high calling also explains why prayer frequently requires much effort, continuous effort, and on some matters possibly years and years of effort. Prayer is, above all, a means of forming character. It combines freedom and power with service and love. What God gets out of our lives - and indeed, what we get out of our lives - is simply the person we become. It is God's intention that we should grow into the kind of person he could empower to do what we want to do. Then we are ready to 'reign for ever and ever' (Rev. 22:5).
      "Brother Lawrence, who was a kitchen worker and cook, remarks, Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake which we commonly do for our own. . . It is a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times. We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action as by prayer in the season of prayer."
      Nondiscipleship is the elephant in the church. It is not the many moral failures, financial abuses or amazing general similarity between Christian and non-Christians. These are only the effects of the underlying problem. The fundamental negative reality among Christians believers today, is the failure to be constantly learning how to live their lives in the kingdom among us. And it is an accepted reality. The divisions of professing Christians and to those for whom it is a matter of whole life devotion to God and those who maintain a consumer or client relationship to the church has now been an accepted reality for the last 1500 years.
      Henri Nouwen well describes our common situation: “We simply go along with the many "musts" and "oughts" that have been handed on to us, and we live with them as if they were authentic translations of the Gospel of our Lord. People must be motivated to come to church, youth must be entertained, money must be raised, and above all everyone must be happy. Moreover, we ought to be on good terms with the church and civil authorities; we ought to be liked or at least respected by a fair majority of our parishioners; we ought to move up in the ranks according to schedule; and we ought to have enough vacation and salary to live a comfortable life.”
      Do we now even have any idea of what discipleship evangelism, as we might call it, would look Ilke? What message would we preach that would naturally lead to a decision to become an apprentice to Jesus in The Kingdom Among Us? I hope we can now understand what it might be, having worked our way this far. I hope that our understanding of what it is really to trust Jesus Christ, the whole person, with our whole life, would make the call to become his whole-life apprentice the natural next step. That would be discipleship evangelism. And it would be very different from what is now done.
      One of the greatest weaknesses in our teaching and leadership today is that we spend so much time trying to get people to do things good people are supposed to do, without changing what they really believe. It doesn't succeed very well, and that is the open secret of church life.
      Very little of our being lies under the direction of our conscious minds, and very little of our actions runs from our thoughts and consciously chosen intentions. Our mind on its own is an extremely feeble instrument, whose power over life we constantly tend to exaggerate. We are incarnate beings in our very nature, and we live from our bodies. If we are to be transformed, the body must be transformed, and that is not accomplished by talking at it.
    • 4/5
      Great political insight. I have known some of the details of the book but there were a lot that shocked me. The views on the players involved were non biased and that gave this book a lot of its appeal. I found myself more sympathetic to John McCain (despite being a proud liberal) and my respect for Hillary Clinton only increased. The narrative was good and the reading by Dennis Boutsikaris was fresh and lively (I must admit Mr. Boutsikaris, along with Scott Brick and Kirsten Potter, are my favorite audiobook narrators). Recommended.
    • 4/5
      The Kingdom of the Heavens is not then and there, but here and now. Jesus’ radical reordering of society in His ‘sermon on the mount,’ offers a sustained and penetrating look into this new reality. Willard provides a methodical and immensely practical examination of this profound sermon. Although at times drifting into questionable exegesis, Willard’s central thesis is rock solid. In particular, Willard’s explanation of the Kingdom of God and discipleship make this a must-read. A-
    • 3/5
      This book is good, but it comes across as eerily obsequious towards Obama. I’m a 46 year old Black man from the hood, who remembers each event being discussed concerning Obama. It was the most remarkable times in my life. However, I have to be honest. The way this book completely sanitizes his every thoughts, motive, and actions is quite odd. It doesn’t past the test of historical credibility. It’s like even the things that most would admit that was a flaw with him are even cleaned up to redeem him. Who wrote this, Chris Matthew’s? With the tingling up his leg?
    • 5/5
      Half way through and I can already say that every Christian should read this book (in fact they should read all of Dallas Willard’s books). It will take patience and determination to stay completely engaged because the reading level is not for the faint of heart. He’s a Philosophy Professor at USC and his writing is a direct reflection of higher education. If the Lord Jesus tarries, his writings will be considered classics. I wish he were a professor at my seminary, I would have taken every one of his classes. If you are involved in any kind of ministry, you need to read this book!
    • 5/5
      Amazing book. Brutal to read, but worth the pain. Opened my eyes to Kingdom and the experience of God like no other book.
    • 5/5
      Great insight into a little known club. Heilemann’s style and wit made a pleasure and the narration was excellent.
    • 5/5
      I read these out of order, but that doesn't really change the fact that these books are an excellent porthole into the personalities behind presidential elections. A good levelheaded counter to the sound bites that permeate campaigns such as this.
    • 5/5
      I think this could go down as one of the great Christian books of all time, but who am I ?
    • 5/5
      Insights for practical living from the teachings of Jesus. I hope this book will become a manual for use by Christians in the next generation.
    • 5/5
      Simply stated, perhaps the greatest contemporary Christian book I have read.
    • 5/5
      In a stunningly detailed book, readers get an inside glimpse of the 2008 presidential campaign in Game Change. The politically savvy will enjoy the depths of the book, while those not politically savvy will learn something new. Short chapters and easy-to-read text make Game Change a must-read for those who witnessed the 2008 presidential campaign and Barack Obama's historical victory. 
    • 5/5
      If you are a Christian and want to take in something that will challenge you to live a radically Christlike life, then this is one book you must read. Willard, a professor of philosophy at USC, uses the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5-7 as the basis for this 1997 work that is already widely recognized in evangelical circles as a classic in the genre of Christian spiritual formation. He gives practical, concrete teaching on living as subjects of the King in the “kingdom of the heavens” (Willard’s preferred rendering of the Greek). While his understanding of Christian theology at times seems to be influenced more by Plato than Moses – and this is a shortcoming in my opinion – he skillfully explains discipleship in terms of present kingdom realities. His “curriculum for Christlikeness” (chapter 9) is worth the price of the book alone. Willard’s syntax is sometimes complex, even cumbersome, which means it may not be the easiest reading for some. However, those willing to work slowly and carefully through the book, as I did, will enjoy an abundant feast of spiritual nourishment. There is an ample index and a wealth of endnotes.
    • 4/5
      I found it very interesting. It's easy to get caught up in the public personas and forget that these folks are just people.

      Well done and entertaining as well as informative and interesting.
    • 3/5
      I learned that Obama apparently talks less than a mime
    • 5/5
      Talk about being a fly on the wall.... This book was fascinating. It tells the stories of the three main presidential contenders in 2008: Obama, Hillary Clinton and McCain, with a little bit about Edwards included for good measure. The differences in their styles was profound, from the reasons they each chose to run, to their decision making processes, to the campaign teams they assembled and how those teams worked. The part about how Palin was chosen was scary. I don't know if the author was an Obama partisan, but you certainly come away from this book feeling like we elected the person who was best equipped to lead the country.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating, really quite unputdownable. An insider's look at what was going on in the political campaigns of the presidential contenders in 2008.
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book. This is the election that really got me interested in politics and how the whole process works, not only on a national level but at my own local level as well.

      This is basically the story of the 2008 election. The book uses behind the scenes information from a bunch of sources to put together the bigger then life personalities running for president. It starts out with Obama and Clinton and their race through the primaries and switches to McCain around the halfway mark to tell his story and in the end smashes the stories together to relate the end of the election in November.

      It is written in a very layman's, friendly way that means anyone will be able to follow along without being bogged down in insider political terms.
    • 4/5
      It's always interesting to read topical books several years after they've been written. This one, chronicling the 2008 Presidential campaign became famous for the HBO movie that was made based on the book. However, this book is much more than just the dysfunction of the McCain-Palin campaign. Starting in 2004 it tells of Barack Obama's rise to both fame & the Presidency as well as the divisive 2007-9 Democratic primary contests. and is fairly unsparing in its judgement of all the candidates in that election season.Looking at the characters from the (albeit short) distance of 5 years, the reader can see the seeds of the events of 2010 - 2013 being sewn in that campaign. Today, Barack Obama seems to being felled by his own hubris, McCain has reverted to his original role as a maverick elder statesman, Hillary may be considering whether or not she's too old to make a run for the Oval Office in 2016, no one pays much attention to Sarah Palin, and Bill Clinton is till pretty much outside of anyone's control.Full of juicy details, this is a great book for political junkies.
    • 5/5
      This book is in the tradition of Theodore White's great Making of a President series, which I devoured years ago as soon as they appeared, on the inside story of presidential campaigns. This one is just as good, high praise, indeed.

      Another great example of how we are failed by the media and need to learn details a coujple of years after the fact. Fascinating details such as how many Senators were urging Obama to run. The field looked weak. Edwards was considered shallow, Gofre was not interested, no one else particularly strong around except Hillary and they were terrified because if she had gotten the nomination, all the increasingly common rumors of Bill's continued infidelities would surface. Not to mention her vote on the war. It was also clear that her campaign staff, while very loyal, was not as good as one would have liked.

      Clearly, the Clinton campaign presumed to believe the nomination was theirs, and Hillary had even put together a transition staff already in October of 2007. The only thing, she believed standing in their way was Iowa, and they didn't expect to lose that state. Axelrod believed correctly that Mark Penn, Clinton's campaign manager, was locked into a strategy borrowed from the 1990 succesful campaign and wqould be unable to change even though times had changed drstically.

      Iowa was a game changer: Obama slaughterd the opposition and Huckabee came out of nowhere to beat the other front-runners. Clinton had spent more than $23 million on Iowa, more than $500,00 per vote obtained. It was also becoming abundantly clear that two major factors were preventing Hillary from doing better: her dysfunctional campaign that she seemed unable to organize or control; and Bill, an out-of-control ex-president who could not bear the idea of being out of the limelight. Hillary had difficulty dealing with personnel issues and was reluctant to deal with problems directly (one wonders how that might have translated to her administration had she won.) In fact, when a staffer asked her to deal with Bill and control him, she wanted to delegate that to someone else, arguing she couldn't do it.

      All of the candidates assiduously courted the Kennedy endorsement. They had long ties to the Clintons, but Edward Kennedy and his family were charmed by the similarities Obama had to their fallen icon JFK: the hope, the charisma, the intelligence, and wonderful speech-making. Bill Clinton, on one of his trips to the Kennedy compound to gain support, nailed his own -- and his wife's -- chances for success, by remarking during a discussion with Teddy refering to Obama's age, and perhaps totally losing any subconscious symbolism, that "just a few years ago, that boy would have been serving us the coffee." That remark totally offended Edward Kennedy.

      Meanwhile, the McCain campaign was suffering from a candidate who wasn't that popular with the Repoublican base and who knew it. "Why would I want to be the leader of a party of such assholes," he said. His stance on amnesty for undocumented workers was anathema to the right, and he had difficulty mustering any kind of enthusiam for a protracted campaign especially after what the Bush folks had done to him in South Carolina in 2000. At one point during a debate prep session, McCain was asked to explain the difference between same-sex marriage and civil unions. Tired of everything, he shouted, "I don't give a fuck." The choice of Palin was a last ditch, unplanned, and very unprepared for attempt at revival. He worked to some extent, energizing the base. But it also lost support for McCain from moderate Republicans, many of them long-time supporters of McCain, who saw the move as a slap in the face. They viewed her as clearly unprepared to be president, and, as one large campaign donor and long-time supporter of McCain explained his switch to Obama simply by saying: "Palin."
    • 3/5
      The political wonk's version of US Weekly. Full of apparentlys, allegedlys and not a source in sight. It's extremely readable (how could multiple train-wrecks not be?) but I still have issues with the way the women are dealt with in the book. When Hillary Clinton talks, she is described as "whining" or "bitching" or "screeching", words never used for Obama or the men. While Obama wipes away a tear, Hillary cries. The message remains clear.

      For a chunky book, it's a surprisingly quick read, and a good starting point for anyone interested in the 2008 election, a historic one in politics.
    • 4/5
      Engrossing and entertaining. Perhaps a tad salacious, but necessarily so. Palin in the subtitle is disingenuous, however as she isn't mentioned until 70% into the book. Obama v. Clinton is the primary, and proper, focus.
    • 5/5
      It is fun to review in one quick read the entire political experience of 2007 and 2008, in the last moment before my memories of that election are erased by the coming 2011/2012 contest. The authors fill in lots of background information, and create a satisfying summary of the historical moment. I'm left however with one insight of sorts. The couple with the best marriage won.

      Maybe America just voted for the only sane people in the pack - Barack and Michelle. This book recounts the astonishing dysfunction of the Edward's marriage (both of the partners equally pouring the crazy), and the unbelievable delusional thinking of John Edwards. To think that he had a chance at the nomination, or the vice presidency, or any office, is frightening, notwithstanding his sometimes superior policy proposals. The Clintons are revealed to be more dysfunctional than I had imagined them, although one does sometimes sense an underlying affection as well. Is that affection real or a well practiced political habit? It's very hard to read them, but whatever relationship they have worked out it would be hard to describe it as completely positive or parsable in everyday terms.

      As for John McCain and Cindy, their marriage is revealed to be clearly a shell of an actual relationship - like the Clintons they seem to be largely a political corporation. The Palins, while explored in less depth, are also pretty obvious head cases, individually and as a unit, to say nothing of Sarah Palin's astonishing, mind numbing, blistering, gobsmacking ignorance. In all of these above relationships the rumors or realities of infidelities circulate.

      In contrast to all the rest of them the Obamas come out seeming like fairly sane and emotionally whole people with an actual love relationship and friendship that might even have significance to them beyond their career as a political family. And, somehow America chose Obama, and somehow it rejected the other nutcases in their nutcase marriages. What that means, I do not know.
    • 4/5
      As someone who very closely followed the 2008 Presidental election, & campaigned for one of the candidates, I was very interested in reading this book. I had been told that it was excellent, and I was not disappointed.

      You learn about all the major players in the Presidential campaign, including John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and of course, Sarah Palin. I was surprised by many things I read; for instance, John McCain was not very invested in his campaign for months, and there were a few times it almost ended. Sarah Palin became so morose and withdrawn during the campaign that McCain's people called in a psychiatrist to observe her mental state. Michelle Obama was completely opposed to Barack Obama running for president - and Cindy McCain didn't want John to run, either. John Edwards was extremely egotistical, and toward the end of his campaign, completely delusional, and his wife, Elizabeth, comes across completely differently than her public persona.

      It's a juicy story, but one with plenty of political behind the scenes information, as well - the part in which the authors cover the financial meltdown is very interesting - and it reads like a novel. Anyone who has interest in politics, especially in the 2008 election, will be very entertained by this book.
    • 3/5
      This book would be a good read for those who didn’t follow the campaign very closely at the time. For those of us who did, nothing new or earth-shattering was illuminated in here that we didn’t already know. However, the one thing that was new to me was the unflattering portrait of the late Elizabeth Edwards. With that being said, I could see picking this book up again after another five years, when my memories have faded, and being interested in the “story” that the authors are telling.
    • 5/5
      THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE AUDIOBOOKThis is a book about the ins and outs of the 2008 campaign (you know … the one where a young upstart named Barack Obama beat out Hilary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and went on to defeat John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin). I’m not into politics AT ALL but I found this book utterly fascinating (which makes me wonder if I’m more interested in politics than I think or if it was just such an interesting campaign). I mistakenly thought it dealt more with Sarah Palin than it does (her part is only the last third of the book), but it didn’t matter—the battle between Obama and Clinton provided more than enough drama and intrigue. (And the whole John Edwards disaster was like watching a car accident in slow motion.) However, I did get the payoff I was looking for as the book provides a rather damning look into the selection of Palin and the realities of her candidacy. (If you didn’t guess by that last sentence, I’m not a big Palin fan.) Trust me … you don’t need to be a political junkie to enjoy this book. It was gripping from the start and, even though I knew how things turned out in the end, I was still on the edge of my seat as all the various aspects of the race unfolded. I listened to this book on audio, and Dennis Boutsikaris was the perfect choice of narrator. I’m hoping that the authors chronicled the 2012 campaign as I’d LOVE to read about it and find out the details and behind-the-scenes stuff that we don’t really get in regular news coverage. This will definitely be on my “best of the year” lists.
    • 5/5
      Very accessible, fully detailed with most of the material on the record. Confirms many of my perceptions and impressions during the 2008 presidential campaign. I infer that Hillary Clinton lost in large measure due to her inability to manage her campaign organization. McCain's organization selected Palin five days before he announced her selection as VP running mate, principally with the intention of creating a monster impact in the media that would upstage the Democratic Convention's choice of Obama; McCain's agreement to pick Palin was a craven act of political manipulation, I hardly believe that he is proud of it.
    • 4/5
      I had forgotten how crazy the 2007-2008 election period was. This book has it all. The most depressing part by far is Chapter 7, wherein we learn that John and Elizabeth Edwards were . . . pretty much . . . out of their minds. Meanwhile, the big story is that for the most part the campaigns are ill-managed and out-of-control. The candidates spend huge dollars, and they get infighting, waste, and grotesque internal politics.
    • 5/5
      Though I should admit my liberal bias upfront, I found this book to be a fascinating account of the behind the scenes action of the 2008 Presidential campaign. A Clinton supporter myself, it was so interesting to see how her campaign literally imploded from within over ridiculous issues, such as her husband's lack of self control. It reads like a novel, with very engrossing characters and plot lines, to the point where I started fact checking things myself just to make sure I was actually reading a true account and not an exciting thriller! I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in that roller-coaster of an election year!
    • 4/5
      The backstory: With the 2012 U.S. presidential election heating up, I decided it was finally time to read a (recent) historical account of the 2008 election--because I often like a little distance from my politics to keep my emotions in check. As one of my favorite lines in this book says: so well "Obama smirked and reprised for Axelrod another of his favorite sayings: “This shit would be really interesting if we weren’t in the middle of it.”"The basics: Game Change is a joint effort by John Heilemann, a political writer for New York magazine, and Mark Halperin, a political reporter for Time magazine. Both covered the 2008 election in depth at the time. In Game Change, they join forces, combine resources, and manage to interview hundreds of political operatives and campaign workers.My thoughts: I devoured John Heilemann's coverage of the 2008 election. Typically when my New York arrives, I flip right to the Approval Matrix on the last page and then do the crossword. About once a month I get around to reading the magazine itself. During that election, however, I immediately read his coverage. 2008 was a special election for many reasons. On the grander scale, both the Republican and Democratic primaries were wide open. There was no incumbent and the current vice president opted not to run. More personally, Mr. Nomadreader and I moved to Des Moines (for the first time) in the summer of 2007. We worked at a brewpub downtown and waited on numerous politicians running for president. We went to see many of the candidates early on at open forums with only a hundred people. It was intimate campaigning in a way I'd never seen, and it was infectious. Despite my intentions to keep an open mind and not pick a candidate too soon, I did. We were even pictured in campaign literature for one of the candidates before the January 2008 primary.All of this is to say: reading the first part of the book about the Iowa caucuses was fascinating. I was here; I lived it. Yet Heilemann and Halperin made it seem new. There's an art to writing about politics in the moment, and Heilemann proved he can do that during the election. It's a different art to write about politics in a historical context. I would argue it's perhaps most difficult to write about politics in a recent historical context. That Game Change reads like a smart pulp novel is a testament to both the writers and the wackiness of the 2008 presidential election. They grasped the eccentricities of Iowa politics beautifully: "Democrats in Iowa were decidedly liberal, with a peacenik streak." The Republicans tend to be social conservatives (as evidenced by the last two Iowa caucus winners: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.) And then there are a lot of Iowans who are moderate swing voters. It's a fascinating political climate.After the action moved on from the Iowa caucuses, the book lagged only slightly before picking up steam again. The entire primary race riveted me in 2008, but I had a new perspective on the timeline. While I recalled all of the events well, I didn't recall their order as precisely or understand the pending ramifications.The general election was even more intriguing and mind-boggling. The Sarah Palin storyline actually was more shocking when reading it context. At the time, there seemed to be confusion, but with fours years distance, her ignorance is somehow even more shocking and terrifying:"Palin couldn’t explain why North and South Korea were separate nations. She didn’t know what the Fed did. Asked who attacked America on 9/11, she suggested several times that it was Saddam Hussein. Asked to identify the enemy that her son would be fighting in Iraq, she drew a blank. (Palin’s horrified advisers provided her with scripted replies, which she memorized.) Later, on the plane, Palin said to her team, “I wish I’d paid more attention to this stuff.”"While neither John Edwards nor Sarah Palin are painted in a particularly positive light, I think the portrayals of the political figures were just. Watching John Edwards break down slowly was even more fascinating because I knew the ending.I may have my preferences, but I grinned as much as I grimaced at the words and actions of the candidate for whom I voted.Favorite passage: The single most shocking passage in the entire book: "In the midst of the financial crisis, she said to a friend, “God wants him to win.”" -Hillary Clinton on Barack ObamaThe verdict: Game Change is a fascinating glimpse into American presidential politics. It's simultaneously inspiring, frustrating, and sleazy. I enjoyed the parts vivid in my memory as much as I did those I didn't know or had forgotten. In 2008, I couldn't help but think "that can't really true, can it?" In Game Change it's clear truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Recommended to political junkies and casual observers.