105. Game Change - John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

This book (a.k.a. political thriller) is about the 2008 presidential election. Yes, this is the one that you heard about in the news - the one in which Harry Reid was quoted as saying that Obama had a chance at winning the election because he was a "light-skinned African American" with "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." It starts with laying out the candidates' decisions to run; covers the bitter debates; and goes into so much more in between.
What really struck me was how the authors exposed sides of the candidates that the public would never see. Some of my favorite parts ...

When Hillary Clinton found out that Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill said on TV, "I think [Bill Clinton] has been a great leader, but I don't want my daughter near him," ...

The phone went quiet. Hillary was speechless. A few more seconds passed, and then finally came her voice, hot with fury.
"Fuck her," Hillary said - and then called Solis Doyle and summarily canceled the fundraiser.

According to Heilemann and Halperin, so much of Hillary's campaign was centered around (and ultimately hurt by) issues with Bill: his alleged continuing affairs; how to control his mouth; and his borderline comments about race (e.g. that Obama would surely win South Carolina during the primaries, because Jesse Jackson did in 1984 and 1988). The "race issues" were quite funny to read about, though. At one point, Hillary wanted to make a commercial portraying Obama as a chameleon.

Penn and Grunwald (Clinton advisers) theorized that Obama, the darling of the left, was pandering to conservative Democrats in northern Nevada. He’s become a chameleon, one of them said.
“He has! We should call him that!” Hillary said, proposing a TV ad that somehow pictured Obama as a color-shifting lizard. “We need a visual,” she said.
“We can’t,” Grunwald replied.
“Why?” Hillary asked.
The color thing, Grunwald said. We’d get hit for dabbling with race.
“Oh Gawwwd,” Hillary groaned. “Give me a break.”

There were also so many fascinating behind-the-scenes stories about Obama. Apparently, he's a lot more cocky than a lot of people might think. Then again ... don't you have to be in order to have the guts to run for president of the United States?? But he also apparently has his emotional side. At one point, Valerie Jarrett threw a book party for him in her backyard soon after The Audacity of Hope had come out.

Jarrett introduced Obama and spoke about Audacity’s final chapter, in which he wrote about the stress that the demands of his career put on his marriage, the
disruptions to his family life. As Jarrett went on, talking about the sacrifices his wife and girls were making, she saw that Obama was crying-to the point where he couldn’t manage to speak when it came his turn. Michelle walked over, put her arm around him, and began to cry as well.
Even Obama’s closest friends had never seen him choke up in public before. He’s not emoting about the past, Jarrett thought. He’s emoting about the future. About the fact the sacrifices he’s imposed on his family are only just beginning.

The writers also exposed a lot about the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter story. How ironic that John Edwards finally came forward two weeks before this book came out and admitted that he had fathered her child. Many of his campaign staffers had been trying so hard to keep her away from him, knowing what was going on. And not that this in any way justifies his actions, but Elizabeth was apparently "an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazy-woman" who walked all over Edwards. What a stark contrast from her image as the cancer-surviving, supportive politician's wife.

I wish the authors had included more about the McCain-Palin side of the story. But a few funny pieces were that one of McCain's favorite outfits off-camera is a dress shirt and boxer shorts (eww) and that McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman would watch the YouTube clip of John Edwards fixing his hair and roll on the floor with laughter. Also, the media has already exposed stories about McCain's temper, but this part was funny:

McCain was erupting over everything. At a scheduling meeting to discuss [his daughter] Meghan’s college graduation, McCain learned that the commencement was a multiday affair that would require him to make several round trips to New York. “How many fucking times do I have to go to fucking New York this week?” he yelled. “How many fucking times can you fucking graduate from fucking Columbia?”

There wasn't anything too shocking about Palin in there - I think the media has already done a pretty good job exposing her ridiculousness. But a small excerpt shows just how hardcore these campaigns are ... something had come up about Palin, and the staffers were not getting direct answers from her and so they had to check it out themselves.

Schmidt wanted to get them on the horn and have the history of her AIP registration checked out immediately.
"But it's two in the morning in Alaska," someone said.
"The phones don't work at fucking night there?" Schmidt bellowed. "Call them! And keep calling them until they pick up!"

Overall, the writing was exquisitely entertaining. The authors call Hillary's camp "Hillaryland" and Edwards' camp "the Edwardsphere." And read how they describe one of Obama's speeches in Iowa:

With a law professor's attention to detail and a litigator's argumentativeness -- plus a hint of the defensiveness of a politician under fire -- he included rebuttals to almost every criticism that Clinton had hurled at him down the homestretch.

Brilliant! It's interesting to note that a lot of the "quotes" are actually not in quotation marks ... in the preface, the authors point out that this was purposeful and was to show that the person remembering the supposed "quote" might not have been able to remember the exact verbiage - but that the idea was close enough.

This was a long book ... but unlike The Poisonwood Bible (notwithstanding the completely different genre), it was impossible to put down.