Interesting look into how political campaigns work. Highlights the crazy in just about every person involved. I'm still not sure why Hillary thinks the Obama campaign should pay her campaigns multi-million dollar debt and I can't figure out how anyone can find Sarah Palin appealing as a political leader. Mostly it made me think that the world of politics really is as messed up as I always thought. ( )

This book about the 2008 US presidential race confirmed something I have known for some time: you have to be a little unbalanced to want the job. It doesn't pay that much. Every aspect of your life is examined under a microscope. The race to get the job is exhausting, and once you've got it you wish you hadn't.

That said this book told me a few things I probably hadn't considered before. For example, my wife would have made a better Vice-President than Sarah Palin. I kid you not. John McCain couldn't possibly have believed he would be elected when he asked Palin to run with him. Or he is insane.

Hillary Clinton emerges as a favorite of the authors, and, it seems, of Obama himself. The book ends with Obama begging Hillary to become his Secretary of State. In hindsight, it was a good choice. However, the scene reminded me of something Lyndon Johnson is credited with saying: that he felt a lot more comfortable with his enemies inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside the tent pissing in. I'm not sure of Obama's motives for hiring Clinton. I don't think anybody will ever really know.

I don't really feel enlightened about why either Hillary or Barak ran for this office. You'd probably have to know these people very well to understand it. You don't really run the US government as President. You preside over it....and argue with the legislators.

The back and forth of the race for the Democratic leadership was a thrilling story, but I'm glad that wasn't me in the story. ( )

This was an interesting book about the 2009 Presidential campaign. The authors don't name their sources but somehow they came up with a lot of gossipy tidbits and detailed conversations. They related many behind the scenes discussions and snide remarks that took place between the candidates and their wives, the advisers, and other politicians, etc. The authors covered both the Democratic and Republican campaigns from the primaries to Election Day. The main cast of characters were the Obama's, Clinton's, Edwards, McCain's and Palin's. ( )

I found it very interesting. It's easy to get caught up in the public personas and forget that these folks are just people.

Well done and entertaining as well as informative and interesting. ( )

Like a lot of people, I followed the 2008 Presidential election very closely. It was interesting to read this book with the knowledge I had because it all made perfect sense, and there were a few parts of the book that really clarified what was happening in front of the cameras. This is a book about the people involved with the campaigns - Edwards, Hillary Clinton (and Bill), and then-Senators Obama and Biden on the Democrat side; McCain and Palin on the Republican side. In addition, a lot of behind-the-scenes folks.

I come away from it disappointed in the spectacle that presidential campaigns have become. This should come as no surprise, but there was very little idea stuff going on in that campaign. (And not in the book, either - if you are looking for policy analysis, look elsewhere.) Instead, it was an endless series of calculations and fretting about how this or that would "play". Our country needs more "Lincoln-Douglas" and less "Survivor".

I also come away with a changed opinion of several people. I worry that a book like this is giving me inaccurate information in that regard, but I can't help it. This is a powerful personal account and the players are as intimate as characters in a novel. A darn good novel, to boot.