Book-It 'o14! Book #11
Jun. 4th, 2014 03:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alivemagdoleneThe Fifty Books Challenge, year five! (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013) This was a library request.
Title: Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann
Details: Copyright 2013, Penguin Press
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): ""What am I supposed to do when he starts spewing his bullshit?" --Barack Obama, preparing for his first debate with Mitt Romney
In their runaway bestseller Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama’s improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen—facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money makers, and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrest back control of the White House—and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught of super PACs and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of GOP contenders—ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish—as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination.
Double Down exposes blunders, scuffles, and machinations far beyond the klieg lights of the campaign trail: Obama storming out of a White House meeting with his high command after accusing them of betrayal. Romney’s mind-set as he made his controversial “47 percent” comments. The real reasons New Jersey governor Chris Christie was never going to be Mitt’s running mate. The intervention held by the president’s staff to rescue their boss from political self-destruction. The way the tense détente between Obama and Bill Clinton morphed into political gold. And the answer to one of the campaign’s great mysteries—how did Clint Eastwood end up performing Dada dinner theater at the Republican convention?
In Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann take the reader into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign for a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I read the vastly entertaining Game Change and when I heard there was a book for the 2012 election? I was skeptical that it could be as good but eager to see if it would be.
How I Liked It: The book has formidable shoes to fill by way of its predecessor and an "in" for the same reason. The 2008 election was historic and would promise a new regime no matter who took office. The 2012? Not so much. Still, if anyone could find an angle, it would seem to be these two authors.
The book opens at a critical point in the campaign, Obama's "disastrous" first debate performance and the chaos amongst his supporters and staff that ensued, before squaring back to spring of 2011.
This book, much like the first, deals with Republicans and Democrats in separate sections, the former following the latter, before the two candidates finally square off. The section on the Democrats captures much of the spark and snark of the first book. The careful choreographing of both of the Clintons into the campaign, but most especially the 42nd president, makes for particularly entertaining reading (Bill refers to Obama at at least one point as "luckier than a dog with two dicks"). The series of books, particularly Jodi Cantor's The Obamas is a source of much consternation including a memorable scene in which Obama demands to know who in his inner circle leaked his list, nine or ten pages handwritten on a yellow legal pad, of his agenda for various issues, domestic and foreign. He finally leaves for the Oval Office, telling them when the person who revealed his list to the press wants to confess and apologize, they'll know where he'll be. After a door slam, and a minute of shocked silence, Biden gets up and delivers a blistering attack on whoever did this to the president along with his own pledge of loyalty and testament to the president's morality, a speech that lasted twice as long as Obama's before he leaves similarly.
The book starts to stumble when it comes to the Republicans, if for no other reason than there's much more ground to cover. It covers the contentious feelings of the Huntsmans for the Romneys, the eyeball-roll-inducing antics of Donald Trump, and the brief tides of popularity of each of the "out there" candidates, including their downfalls. It offers an interesting tidbit regarding Rick Perry's most infamous stumble ("Oops.") with an explanation: Perry had been a runner all his life but an injury to his foot had put a stop to it, leaving Perry with terrible insomnia. The rigors of campaigning didn't help. Few other candidates besides Romney are favored with as much speculation (for obvious reasons, but when one is reading about them, the obvious push through to get to the "meat" of the party gets tedious), although Michele Bachmann's annoyance at the comparisons to Sarah Palin (she felt herself a bookish, down-to-earth candidate who eschewed the glamor and celebrity Palin embraced) is particularly interesting.
The book drops the infamous "47% speech" and waits to pick it up when it's revealed in the fall.
Once it gets to the back and forth between Obama and Romney, the book picks up steam again, but it's clunky. Unlike the first book, several cultural touch points in the campaign don't show up. The Aurora shooting (gun control), the murder of Trayvon Martin (racial profiling/gun violence), Chick-Fil-A's anti-gay stance (marriage equality), all of which prompted reaction from voters and from the respective campaigns, aren't covered.
The book has a slap-dash feeling far too often, particularly in comparison to the precision of Game Change. While much was made on the Romney campaign of Obama's "You didn't build that" line (including favoring a night of the RNC convention with the title and having Ann Romney bellow a rejoinder in her convention speech ala Oprah), the book never covers it, but labors intensively over divisions among the Obama staff to the point of minutia.
The book, while nowhere near the fascinating, entertaining read of Game Change, is still a fairly interesting and surprising read.
Notable: In what felt almost a little too winking, the authors make a nod to the success of the first book including its much-talked about film adaption.
While it's a little too cute of a reference, it's still pretty interesting and of course prompts wonder who, if anyone, Ryan was casting as himself in the inevitable sequel.
Title: Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann
Details: Copyright 2013, Penguin Press
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): ""What am I supposed to do when he starts spewing his bullshit?" --Barack Obama, preparing for his first debate with Mitt Romney
In their runaway bestseller Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama’s improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen—facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money makers, and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrest back control of the White House—and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught of super PACs and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of GOP contenders—ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish—as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination.
Double Down exposes blunders, scuffles, and machinations far beyond the klieg lights of the campaign trail: Obama storming out of a White House meeting with his high command after accusing them of betrayal. Romney’s mind-set as he made his controversial “47 percent” comments. The real reasons New Jersey governor Chris Christie was never going to be Mitt’s running mate. The intervention held by the president’s staff to rescue their boss from political self-destruction. The way the tense détente between Obama and Bill Clinton morphed into political gold. And the answer to one of the campaign’s great mysteries—how did Clint Eastwood end up performing Dada dinner theater at the Republican convention?
In Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann take the reader into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign for a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I read the vastly entertaining Game Change and when I heard there was a book for the 2012 election? I was skeptical that it could be as good but eager to see if it would be.
How I Liked It: The book has formidable shoes to fill by way of its predecessor and an "in" for the same reason. The 2008 election was historic and would promise a new regime no matter who took office. The 2012? Not so much. Still, if anyone could find an angle, it would seem to be these two authors.
The book opens at a critical point in the campaign, Obama's "disastrous" first debate performance and the chaos amongst his supporters and staff that ensued, before squaring back to spring of 2011.
This book, much like the first, deals with Republicans and Democrats in separate sections, the former following the latter, before the two candidates finally square off. The section on the Democrats captures much of the spark and snark of the first book. The careful choreographing of both of the Clintons into the campaign, but most especially the 42nd president, makes for particularly entertaining reading (Bill refers to Obama at at least one point as "luckier than a dog with two dicks"). The series of books, particularly Jodi Cantor's The Obamas is a source of much consternation including a memorable scene in which Obama demands to know who in his inner circle leaked his list, nine or ten pages handwritten on a yellow legal pad, of his agenda for various issues, domestic and foreign. He finally leaves for the Oval Office, telling them when the person who revealed his list to the press wants to confess and apologize, they'll know where he'll be. After a door slam, and a minute of shocked silence, Biden gets up and delivers a blistering attack on whoever did this to the president along with his own pledge of loyalty and testament to the president's morality, a speech that lasted twice as long as Obama's before he leaves similarly.
The book starts to stumble when it comes to the Republicans, if for no other reason than there's much more ground to cover. It covers the contentious feelings of the Huntsmans for the Romneys, the eyeball-roll-inducing antics of Donald Trump, and the brief tides of popularity of each of the "out there" candidates, including their downfalls. It offers an interesting tidbit regarding Rick Perry's most infamous stumble ("Oops.") with an explanation: Perry had been a runner all his life but an injury to his foot had put a stop to it, leaving Perry with terrible insomnia. The rigors of campaigning didn't help. Few other candidates besides Romney are favored with as much speculation (for obvious reasons, but when one is reading about them, the obvious push through to get to the "meat" of the party gets tedious), although Michele Bachmann's annoyance at the comparisons to Sarah Palin (she felt herself a bookish, down-to-earth candidate who eschewed the glamor and celebrity Palin embraced) is particularly interesting.
The book drops the infamous "47% speech" and waits to pick it up when it's revealed in the fall.
Once it gets to the back and forth between Obama and Romney, the book picks up steam again, but it's clunky. Unlike the first book, several cultural touch points in the campaign don't show up. The Aurora shooting (gun control), the murder of Trayvon Martin (racial profiling/gun violence), Chick-Fil-A's anti-gay stance (marriage equality), all of which prompted reaction from voters and from the respective campaigns, aren't covered.
The book has a slap-dash feeling far too often, particularly in comparison to the precision of Game Change. While much was made on the Romney campaign of Obama's "You didn't build that" line (including favoring a night of the RNC convention with the title and having Ann Romney bellow a rejoinder in her convention speech ala Oprah), the book never covers it, but labors intensively over divisions among the Obama staff to the point of minutia.
The book, while nowhere near the fascinating, entertaining read of Game Change, is still a fairly interesting and surprising read.
Notable: In what felt almost a little too winking, the authors make a nod to the success of the first book including its much-talked about film adaption.
“[Paul] Ryan tried to calm his nerves on Wednesday [the night he was to appear and speak at the RNC] by watching movies with his wife in his hotel-- but the gambit had the opposite effect. By sheer coincidence, they happened to catch an airing of the HBO film Game Change about [Sarah] Palin's travails. Ryan was riveted, but soon regretted it. What the hell was I doing watching that? he asked [lead adviser Dan] Senor later.” (pg 369)
While it's a little too cute of a reference, it's still pretty interesting and of course prompts wonder who, if anyone, Ryan was casting as himself in the inevitable sequel.
