Book: Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

I liked this gossipy but informative and fluent book about the Obama/Clinton and McCain/Palin bids for the presidency and vice-presidency. Many of the anecdotes were already known, but enough of the back story was new material, I suspect, for this book to be avidly read by millions. What came through, for me, is that Obama was a good choice; he is a cool cat, but he is not without his deficiencies. Hillary was extremely hard-working and competent and was, IMO, treated unfairly, although she, too, has her own less-than-flattering private persona. Bill Clinton was certainly a factor throughout her bid for the nomination, legitimately, and not always positively, although, IMO, he always comes through in the end. The playing field was not level. The media and then the public became infatuated with Obama, since he was so cool, so charismatic, such a phenomenon. And we Americans love the distraction of a phenomenon, saturated and bored as we are with dailiness. What made this OK, fortunately, is that Obama seems to be an energetic, intelligent, steely President. (Not that HIllary wouldn't have been....)The last chapter was revealing and poignant...the pas de deux between Barack and Hillary over the Secretary of State offer.

McCain and Palin were also shown at their best and worst, although, really, Sarah Palin needed more time to prepare and absorb and understand this momentous moment of history and her part in it. That she didn't have that time made her public events and her personna during the campaign quickly become unbelievable by too many.

The authors don't exactly savage anyone; they do, however, edge up to that, repeatedly, with most of the main characters and many of the minor players. Still, they find humanity in all of them. Obama, Joe, John and Sarah, as most of us, are just mortals, not perfect, but aspiring to effect greater good. I did not feel that any of them were dysfunctional eogmaniacs or that they wanted to run solely for personal glory.

Was this a true game change? Probably not, except for the fact that Obama is our first African-American president, but that fact seemed not to matter very much as time went out. What is obvious is how instantaneously the media makes available so much of the high and low moments of events and individuals. This is a game change that becomes more and more defined with each campaign, determining much of the action/reaction. Is this good?