Authors & Political Commentators
Mark Halperin & John Heilemann
Notes from Evan Smith
"Forget every other presidential campaign book you've ever read — every candidate confessional, every journalist embed tick tock, every effort, selfless or self-interested, to put back together the Humpty Dumpty pieces of a years-in-the making nomination and general election fight. No other well-reported and written tome can touch the recently released Game Change for its you-are-there authority and juicy, meaty cinematic if not operatic narrative. The subtitle —Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime — says it all, but only in reading this instant best-seller do you get a rounded, portrait of the 2008 presidential election cycle, which turns out to have been even more interesting at the detail level than it appeared in the satellite view. Now in its 12th printing, with 600,000 copies in circulation — so much for the death of the publishing industry — Game Change would not be the phenomenon it is, would not exist, were it not for the access and all-around excellence of its authors, who are our guests this week. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann are veterans of this generation's political wars, having covered innumerable candidates and campaigns. Mark is editor at large and senior political analyst at Time magazine and the former longtime political director of ABC News. John is the national political correspondent at New York magazine. Both have written books before, and both are expert at tracking down the sort of insider anecdotes that are the stuff of the best political reporting, but even they would admit that they've outdone themselves this time. In so many ways, Game Change is, yes, a game changer." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 03.25.10
