nomadreader

The backstory: After reading ( and loving ) Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's first book, Game Change , about the 2008 U.S. presidential election, I grabbed a copy of their follow up, Double Down , which chronicles the 2012 election, as soon as my library had it. My thoughts: Admittedly, I'm fascinated by politics. I won't go as far to say I enjoy it most of the time, as I far too often find the antics and actions of politicians maddening, but I do love it in retrospect. Looking back at the minutiae of how elections are won and last, bills are passed, and scandals embraced or ruined fascinate me. Double Down  offers all of those things and more. It begins with a prologue of the first debate between Romney and Obama (remember the one when Obama bombed and Romney came off as charming and likeable?) Then the book shifts back to the beginning of the 2012 campaign. Much of what I loved about Game Change  was the lengthy piece about the Iowa caucuses in 2008. It was my firs...

The backstory: With the 2012 U.S. presidential election heating up, I decided it was finally time to read a (recent) historical account of the 2008 election--because I often like a little distance from my politics to keep my emotions in check. As one of my favorite lines in this book says: so well "Obama smirked and reprised for Axelrod another of his favorite sayings: “This shit would be really interesting if we weren’t in the middle of it.”" The basics: Game Change  is a joint effort by John Heilemann, a political writer for New York  magazine, and Mark Halperin, a political reporter for Time magazine. Both covered the 2008 election in depth at the time. In Game Change , they join forces, combine resources, and manage to interview hundreds of political operatives and campaign workers. My thoughts: I devoured John Heilemann's coverage of the 2008 election. Typically when my New York  arrives, I flip right to the Approval Matrix on the last page and then do the cros...