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

by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin 

HarperCollins 2010

Have the political events of 2012 soured you on national politics?  Made you anticipate the 2012 Presidential election?  Or are you so fed up with the obvious inability of our political leadership to find common ground for the betterment of all of us in the United States and around the world?

Unless you have no interest in any of these questions, you will want to put this excellent, and readable exposition of the how the 2008 Presidential election evolved.  We all lived through this election and have our own views of the merits of the respective candidates.  It is now apparent that the 2012 election will be every bit as tumultuous as it was in 2008.  It may be that the stakes are even higher, as the United States has taken a dive off the stage of world leadership.

The characters in the 2012 Play will be many of those depicted in Game Change.  Like Bill Clinton, President Obama will win only if he can move to the center, unless the Republicans commit their own hari kari, as occurred in 2008 (the reasons for which are explained in fascinating detail in Game Change).

It was a pleasure to read and think about this even-handed exposition of the game in 2008.  I could not discern any political axe to be ground on either side, as the skills and periodic  fecklessness of each of the characters is laid in full detail.

Was your vote in 2008 well cast?  How will you vote in 2012?  I submit that each of us has a duty to think through our country is going, educate ourselves about how to vote, and learn from the past.  Game Change is a wonderful story, which just happens to have occurred.  You have more than a year to prepare for November 2012.

Warms, Cym