Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime »

John Heilemann is the national political correspondent and columnist for New York magazine. An award-winning journalist and the author of Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era, he is a former staff writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The Economist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it." —Barack Obama, September 2008

In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton—and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin.

Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

The New York Times Book Review - Jacob Heilbrunn

Heilemann, a columnist for New York magazine, and Halperin, the senior political analyst for Time, have conducted hundreds of interviews to provide the inside story of the 2008 campaign, longer on vignettes and backstage gossip than on analysis. But if their racy account provides little context for Obama's rise, it vividly shows how character flaws large and small caused his opponents to self-destruct. The narrative also reinforces the familiar argument that a presidential campaign provides one important test of a candidate's ability to govern.

Prologue 1

Ch. 1 Her Time 13

Ch. 2 The Alternative 23

Ch. 3 The Ground Beneath Her Feet 39

Ch. 4 Getting to res 55

Ch. 5 The Inevitables 77

Ch. 6 Barack in a Box 103

Ch. 7 "They Looooove Me!" 123

Ch. 8 The Turning Point 145

Ch. 9 The Fun Part 159

Ch. 10 Two for the Price of One 177

Ch. 11 Fear and Loathing in the Lizard's Thicket 193

Ch. 12 Pulling Away and Falling Apart 217

Ch. 13 Obama Agonistes 233

Ch. 14 The Bitter End Game 251

Ch. 15 The Maverick and His Meltdown 271

Ch. 16 Running Unopposed 287

Ch. 17 Slipping Nooses, Slaying Demons 305

Ch. 18 Paris and Berlin 323

Ch. 19 The Mile-High Club 335

Ch. 20 Sarahcuda 353

Ch. 21 September Surprise 377

Ch. 22 Seconds in Command 395

Ch. 23 The Finish Line 417

Epilogue: Together at Last 429

Index 437