Seasoned political reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin interviewed over 200 sources for their best selling book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime – a page turning tell-all about the scandals, decisions and drama of the 2008 presidential election. John and Mark will be here this Friday, March 5th at noon to discuss the election, it’s key players and sign copies of the book. They were nice enough to answer a few questions for the blog.
How close was your access to the 2008 race? From who and where did you find most of information for the book?
Arguably the single most important asset we brought to the project of reporting and writing “Game Change” was our relationships with the candidates and their advisers. Having covered presidential politics for the better part of two decades, we had close professional ties to virtually every significant player in all of the campaigns in both parties. Almost all of the information in the book came from face to face interviews with those people — more than 300 such conversations with more than 200 such sources.
Did you notice a difference between the way the Obama campaign was run, as opposed to previous campaigns you’ve covered?
The Obama campaign was innovative in certain notable ways compared with previous campaigns we’ve covered, including of course its use of the Internet for fundraising and grassroots organizing. And it was also clearly different from the operations of the other major candidates that we write about in “Game Change” — most conspicuously the Clinton and McCain outfits — in that it was highly disciplined, tightly coordinated, and largely free of infighting. The Obama operation wasn’t flawless and there were some internal tensions. But by and large, it was harmonious, focused, and, most important, had a sharp understanding of its candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.
Did you hear anything from Sen. Harry Reid’s people about his controversial comments in your book before it was published? Did any people attempt to persuade you to leave certain things out?
We make it a policy not to discuss who we did and didn’t talk to in the course of writing “Game Change.” We made a pledge to all our sources not to reveal their identities in any way in the book, because we believed (and still believe) it was essential to eliciting the kind of candor necessary to telling the story behind the story of the 2008 campaign. We’ve honored that promise in every instance, both in the book itself and in the aftermath of its publication.
During the 2008 election there was a lot of talk about the personal narrative of some of the candidates (specifically Obama and Palin). How important is the personal history (real or manufactured) of a candidate? Is it more important than their voting/policy record in previous office?
A candidate’s personal history (both real and manufactured) plays a huge role in shaping a presidential campaign. As “Game Change” shows, however, it is hard to maintain a manufactured history over the long haul if it differs too much from the facts of a candidate’s real history. Voting records and policy positions matter too, but those factors are most beneficial to a candidate if they are thematically linked to a his or her biography.
The 2008 campaign is responsible for Sarah Palin’s national prominence. Do you think she has any real ability to access high political office, or will she continue to be a pundit?
If Sarah Palin decides to run for president in 2012 (and our betting is that she is more likely in the end to stay as a pundit instead), she would have to improve in a lot of areas that our reporting shows she had trouble with as a vice presidential candidate. For all the strengths that have allowed her to become a dominant figure in the Republican Party in a short period of time, she has some real question marks around her as well, many involving her private conduct during the tougher moments of the 2008 campaign.
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