Some juicy tidbits from "Game Change" - new book on Election 2008

2008 Campaign, All Over Again in New Book
By JEFF ZELENY

...

The book, “Game Change,” by the political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, is based on interviews with more than 200 people with inside knowledge of the campaign, including Mr. Obama at the White House in late June. But all sources were granted anonymity, and in most cases the authors provide no specific documentation for their account.

Here are some of the assertions most likely to stir up the political class:

* Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, urged Mr. Obama to run for president in the fall of 2006. Mr. Reid and other Democrats, including Senator Charles Schumer, quietly asked him to think about forming a candidacy to energize the Democratic base and improve the party’s chances of winning. Mr. Reid remained neutral. Mr. Schumer endorsed Mrs. Clinton. But on one occasion, they double-teamed Mr. Obama and pressed him to enter the race.

(Asked to respond, a spokesman for Mr. Schumer said the senator “had a high regard for President Obama, but he was a strong and devoted supporter of then-Senator Clinton from the day she announced her campaign to the day she withdrew.”

* Mrs. Clinton seriously weighed jumping into the 2004 presidential race at the 11th hour. Her pollster, Mark Penn, was working for Joseph Lieberman’s campaign at the time, but she hired him to poll voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. The results were encouraging and many of her advisers -– and her husband -– were supportive. A meeting at the Clinton home in Chappaqua found Chelsea Clinton to be among the few dissenters.

* In 2006, advisers to the Clintons tried to come up with a strategy to deal with any public disclosure of an affair that a trio of Mrs. Clinton’s closest advisers concluded the former president was conducting. The authors do not provide any evidence or offer specifics to back up the account, characterizing it as “a sustained romantic relationship.” A spokesman for Mr. Clinton declined to comment about the book or its conclusions.

* In the summer of 2008, after the primary with Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton vented her frustrations to Mr. Penn during an hourlong meeting in July. A transcript of the conversation -– the authors do not say how it was obtained –- finds Mrs. Clinton saying she was “convinced” the Obama campaign cheated in the Iowa caucuses by importing people to the state. She also said it was the Obama campaign’s strategy to play the race card.

...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/2008-campaign-all-over-again-in-new-book/

Guess "juicy" is word for the day. ;)

This bit made me chuckle: "Political scientists aren't going to like this book, because it portrays politics as it is actually lived by the candidates, their staff and the press, which is to say -- a messy, sweaty, ugly, arduous competition between flawed human beings -- a universe away from numbers and probabilities and theories."

I might have to pick this book up.

I can't stand those villagers but .... I admit to glancing at the tabloids at the grocery store checkout. It's gossip. Who knows what's completely true. In the end, it's not that important, but it's our equivalent to Entertainment Tonight, I guess.