October’s book of the month was an impulse buy as the next election approaches and the political scene is heating up. I so closely followed and lived in the 2008 presidential election, that I couldn’t pass up all the recommendations from friends to check out Game Change: Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. It’s co-authored by one of the political analysts I follow and I wanted to get all the inside gossip from the behind the campaigns of the candidates. Most of the book focuses heavily on the long, bitter Democratic Party primary fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with a few mentions of the disastrous Edwards campaign. As the stories unfold & are retold, it’s fascinating to me to see what of the daily drama from the campaign trail really mattered in the long run and who the key players really were in making decisions.
I followed every twist and turn, the dramatic stories and candidate missteps during the primaries, so I loved reliving the excitement of the campaign and getting all the inside scoop on personality conflicts and strategic campaign decisions. In the end, the Republican primary is a fairly simple story and the book devotes a small section to McCain winning the nomination and how he revived his campaign from the brink and made the fatal decision to choose Palin as his running mate. The second half of the book focuses on the general election and all the complexities of running a national political campaign to lock in the electoral college. Since I couldn’t put the book down (even though I knew what was coming), I blazed through this book in a few days and am (sort of) all excited to head into the next presidential election year and primary season in 2012.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Arrived home last night & I’m headed to Kansas today for my last work trip for 2 weeks.
Hmmm…not one to read a much non-fiction (I know, I know…lame), but this intrigues me. Will add it to my book list – so thankful for your many reviews!
to dream the KIMpossible dream recently posted..Kim versus The Race That Wasn’t