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

“A smoking new book. . . . The real revelation in Game Change : Campaigns turn our politicians into lunatics.” — Tina Brown, The Daily Beast “Heilemann and Halperin have conducted hundreds of interviews to provide the inside story of the 2008 campaign. . . . It vividly shows how character flaws large and small caused Obama’s opponents to self-destruct.” — Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times Book Review “A thoroughly researched, well-paced and occasionally very amusing read. . . . The result is something that conveys the feel, or perhaps more accurately the smell, of one of recent history’s most thrilling elections, and it does so better than any of the other books already on the market.” — The Economist “I can’t put down this book!” — Stephen Colbert “Compulsively readable. Once begun, you can’t put it down. . . . Deeply and knowledgeably reported and presented with all the cool sophistication one would expect from two accomplished political reporters.” — Tim Rutten, The Los Angeles Times “Riveting, definitive. . . . A great campaign book. . . . Halperin and Heilemann got insiders to cough up astonishing artifacts, including emails and recordings. . . . Game Change is really interesting, and puts you deep in the middle of it.” — Kurt Andersen, Very Short List “The hottest book in the country.” — The Associated Press “Everybody talked. Anybody that tells you they didn’t is lying to you.” — A former top Clinton aide, to Politico ’s Ben Smith “The best presidential political book since What it Takes by Richard Ben Cramer and Teddy White’s books. These are the types of books that got me into politics.” — Joe Scarborough “An explosive new book. . . . An absolute page turner.” — Soledad O’Brien on Larry King Live “You’ve got to read Game Change . . . . I read each and every word. . . . Game Change is a great book.” — Don Imus “A fascinating account. . . . Heilemann and Halperin serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations, and allegations. . . . Game Change leaves the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Its pages brim with scandalous tidbits. . . . This is a must-read for anyone interested in the cutthroat backroom hows and whys of a presidential campaign. . . . And it doesn’t hurt that Game Change reads more bodice-ripper than Beltway.” — Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly “The authors of Game Change succeed in creating a plausible account of the emotional tumult of the 2008 campaign as it might have been―perhaps even was―experienced by the candidates, their spouses, and their staffs.” — Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker “An amazing piece of work. . . . One of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22 . . . . An absolutely gripping read . . . they can write.” — Clive Crook, The Financial Times In Game Change , John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country’s leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character-driven and dialogue-rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, it’s an intimate portrait of some of the most powerful and fascinating figures in American life—the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime. <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1107304683 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> John Heilemann is the national political correspondent and columnist for New York magazine. An award-winning journalist and the author of Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era , he is a former staff writer for The New Yorker , Wired , and The Economist . He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Mark Halperin is editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time magazine. He is the author of The Undecided Voter’s Guide to the Next President and the coauthor of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 . He has covered six presidential elections, including during his decade as the political director for ABC News. He lives in Manhattan. Read more