I would like this to be a fairly informal back-and-forth about the book but I do want it to be substantive. Primarily I would be interested to know what took people by surprise. Is there anything about the candidates or the process that surprises you? That maybe leads to certain questions about what it takes to run? Is there anything you found upsetting or overly biased?
I would like you to respond at least twice after your initial responses. The first responses are due by Wednesday by midnight. The second wave of responses are due by Thursday night.
I'm also going to post some questions about each of the chapters that might help guide your initial responses:
Chapter 1:
What fateful decision did Hilary Clinton made in the run-up to the 2004 election? Why would she make this decision while so many of her allies were pushing her in the other direction? Do you think she made the wisest choice? How might her initial relationship with Obama be seen as ironic?
Chapter 2:
Why did key Democrats encourage Obama to seek the presidency?What qualities did he possess? What was it about Clinton that give them pause? Why was their support secret?
Chapter 3:
What challenges did Clinton face in her candidacy? Do you sympathize with her? Does the book?
Chapter 4:
What did you think of the process of getting your family or spouse onboard for running for president? Does running for president as it was described by David Plouffe to Obama sound at all appealing to you? If it is so arduous and miserable, then why does anyone want to do it? What does it say about Clinton or Obama? How is their drive defined differently?
These chapters really gave a deeper look into the politics behind the ideology. it made it clear that politicians are built on their strategies and not their platforms. Hillary is depicted with a sense of entitlement to the nomination that you don't really sense from her (probably as a result of her PR strategist). Even so, she sticks to her ideals - denying the nomination when she quite have possibly gotten it in 2004, since she promised her constituents she'd serve the full term, and refusing to recant her Iraq vote. Furthermore, the book also delves into the mentor-mentee relationship between Clinton and Obama on the Senate floor, which quickly turned into a rivalry. Barack is shown to have a lot of raw ambition - like many Republicans, he ran on a platform that lacked experience (although not intelligence). Despite his wife's strong misgivings and aversion to the political spotlight, Obama's ambition and charisma drove the young, the liberal and the miscellaneous into fervent ardor. His brain trust was composed of strategists that defected from Hillary, who believed in his ability to inspire. Combined with a strong support base, wallet mobilization and unique background, Obama's campaign is shown is a different light. Politics is based upon charisma, and Obama's ability to motivate and fundraise was remarkable in the 2008 primaries and elections. However, if there's one thing the book makes clear, it's that running for position x, y or z sucks. I'm convinced the world doesn't exist before 7 AM, and this thoroughly dispelled that. Plouffe puts forth a blunt realism to running - on top of the charisma, the clapping, inspiring, kissing babies, is a big pile of hell: running from event to event, never seeing your family, living out of a suitcase and on the road. To undergo this process, Clinton and Obama either have a remarkable sense of balance and levelheadedness, or a touch of insanity (or "ambition").
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more with Obama's staunch charisma and direct audacity. Considering how young he was politically the only utensil at his disposal to make something of himself was his character and persona. To your final point, I think to be carry yourself everyday, on the road or not, with the same demeanor and attitude, I'd go with insanity.
DeleteI like how you highlighted the irony of the relationship of the Clinton-Obama relationship. The apprentice sort of became the master before the master even became the master. Like Ryan pointed out Obama used his creativity and played off of the audacity of hope to launch himself into the political spotlight.
DeleteClinton is so beat for the 2008 election #TheyCallMeNostradamus
ReplyDeleteQuite riveting. I feel like most of us believe, or at least like to believe that our politicians are almost demigods in a way. Sure they make mistakes, but thats just a part of life, while they are the perfect people to represent our nation. So far, however, the book has shown us just the opposite. It is extremely interesting to see senators appear to be pompous or annoying - very human like characteristics. Seeing one of the nation's representatives drop the F bomb is like seeing the other 90 percent of the iceberg as well. It just doesn't happen. The Hilary Clinton campaign and Obama's roots of superstardom are all quite interesting, but to me just seeing the president of the United States (or future president) nervous, perhaps a little scared, and in need of advice, is almost too candid. The novelty of it all is what stands out the most to be in the first 4 chapters.
ReplyDeleteI agree. A lot of what we know about our politicians are just the 7 second soundbites we hear on the news, which are always inspirational and forceful quotes. When it gets down to the nitty-gritty stuff their nature is a lot like ours. It's interesting to see that the people who run our country are a lot like us.
DeleteAgreed -- we tend to focus on what is done wrong instead what is done right; the negatives in a campaign are more damning than the positives. The book definitely shed perspective unto our political system.
DeleteI understand completely. When I was reading the book and first read a line where Obama blatantly cursed, I could simply think "Whoa." Then: why whoa? I thought over why seeing Barak drop the f-bomb gave me pause versus me trundling through MHS halls, overhearing the same word exchanging mouths, accepting the transactions as completely normal. We are all human and that's what this world all boils down to: what we say in private when we think others are not watching.
DeleteI had never known that Clinton was being almost pushed into the idea of running for office, by so called "big-wigs". A compliment to her strengths, and her preparedness for running such a campaign. Though Obama was an underdog because of his race and his big-time political novice, Clinton was seen as an iffy candidate as well for she is female.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting how Clinton had almost been the training-wheels to the start of Obamas campaign, only to ultimately run against him, and lose.
I also foub it onteresting how clinton seemed to push obama into a position from which he could run for president and win. I think clinton dis not realize at the time she was creating her biggest competition. I also think it is interesting how it is never publiciZed in the media about this relationship between clinton and obama
DeleteI kind of found it funny how much everyone doubted Obama's potential at first because of his inexperience. Most members of the Democratic party saw Obama as the only person who stood some sort of chance against Hillary but could never actually beat her...I bet they don't feel so smart anymore...
DeleteI don't think that the fact that Clinton's womanhood had anything to do with the "iffiness" enveloping her campaign. Sure, there will always be those people who choose to continue to vote against woman candidates simply based on their sex, but I believe that Hillary faced infinitely more opposition from her own colleagues, simply based on image or ambivalence alone, not simply her status as a woman.
DeleteI, like Cat, was interested to read that Clinton helped to jump-start the Obama campaign. That was something I had not known.
ReplyDeleteI find myself wondering about the dialogue. I do not think that the words used are the real ones, as that would be next to impossible. At the same time, I am sure they are close to what was said. It seems that whenever our government officials think they think in curse words, which I tend to doubt. It's hard to think one way and talk another.
I was very surprised during the prologue when the authors mentioned that one of Clinton's staff realized that she should not be president. I wonder what went through their mind the rest of the night, while they tired to look like they were trying to save the campaign.
I also wondered about the sources for the authors quotes and spurts of conversation. I imagine some come from recorded discussion and personal accounts of party members and those close to the candidates. Although, some dialogue doesn't fit with character at times.
DeleteIt seemed strange to me how the authors were able to incorporate these quotes and have the meaning of what the people were saying be the same as what the book was trying to convey. I researched a little bit and found a blog where someone quoted saying that many of these conversations were private and how come the publications of them were never challenged.
DeleteI was thinking the same thing-- how much of the dialogue could possibly be real-- but I guess from interviews and things like that, the authors could infer a good amount-- as far as the curse words go though, politicians are normal people too- and even though we don't really think of them as that, I'm sure they curse a fair amount too... Especially a politician who was just caught for some kind of scandal-- they probably didn't just say "oh darn I was caught"...
DeleteI was also wondering about how the author got the dialogue - my guess is through a combination of stalking, anecdotes, interviews and making stuff up. I'm sure the words are at least somewhat reflective of reality.
DeleteIt's very interesting to read about the candidates and their personality traits as well as the reasons behind everything they do... it amazes me how complicated the political system in our country is, how every politician needs such large groups of aids and advisors to survive. They constantly talk about "keeping doors open" and always have three different plans ready. Politics in our country seems to revolve around money and power, not so much ideals. The part describing "Hillaryland" and the issues that mostly held her back in running for president (such as Bill's personal life) demonstrate how fixated everyone is on the details, and how much rumors cost someone's reputation. Washington is worse than highschool in that regard. Also, this book so far has only let me into the minds of the Democrats, and I hope we get a look into Bush's administration in order to show more clearly both sides (or the third side if you consider the whole Obama vs. Clinton thing) of the race despite the fact that Bush obviously wouldn't be running again.
ReplyDeleteI agree that elections and politics isn't about ideas and agendas as much as the latest gossip about the candidates. I hope that the book will further explain why American politics are so dependent upon the candidates own lives compared to other countries and governments.
DeleteI consider the book to be very enlightening thus far because at the time of the 08 election I hadn't given thought or interest to Hillary Clinton. Plouffe spends a good amount of text elaborating on the Clintonian legacy and ideals. He almost makes them out to be of the same like form as the Kennedy's by giving not just Hillary, but the whole family attention. One of the most profound things I was interested to read about was Hillary rising from Bill's ashes. Being that his scandals were to recent for actually history but not long gone by, I hadn't been informed about this either.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't always see the same Ivy League elite president as the author, Obama does have an annoying way of using "look" to interject in conversation and in response to a moderator. Although he has his quirks, the promise everyone from his party told him he had, seemed unreal. Also, Reid's comment about his clean slate free of corruption, I agree with.
I enjoyed the political advisers of the Clinton campaign essentially telling her no you shouldn't run. Sad when the people you choose to represent you don't have your back.
Overall I'm enticed by the personal spins the author puts on the people. Each candidate has a relate-able identity and the book isn't a political bashing session yet.
When i was reading the beginning of the book, i was initially surprised by the relationship clinton had with obama when he was new in the senate. I had not realize that clinton was like a mentor to obama. I think this is ironic because while she thought she was helping obama an creating an ally, she was actually creating a political firce that would win the eventual election over her. I had notthought about clinton an obamas relationship before the election because i never knew they were anything other than political enemies. I also think it is very interesting how in the book it seems as though many of clitons supporters may switch to suppor obama. It is also interesting to read about the many conversations held during this time before the primaries. I do have to wider ifthe converstions mentioned are only recolections or if they are what really happened. This would give more credibility to the book if alll of the conversations are proven to be true. While reading i was also intruiged by how hard a decision it was for obama to run for president. Before and during the 2008 election, i never rhought about all of the time obama took to make the decision to run. I thought it was a no brainerto him to run and that michelle would be completely supportive. After reading, it seems as though obama was more indecisive about running than i initially imagined. I think this goes to showrhat the decision to run for president is not easy and takes a great deal of thought and many conversations. Finally, on a differet point, i find the authora to be good authors, however they seem condescending towards all of the candidates. Thus may just be a perception, but it seems as though all of the people in the book are portraye as snibby, conceited, ab not nice people. I do not know if this is true, but i am glad that everyone is portrayed this way, which eliminates bias.. Oberall, i am really enjoying the book and look forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteThinking back upon the 2008 presidential election is slightly blurry to me. Having been only 14 at the time, I was somewhat aware, but hadn’t paid any close attention to anything going on in the election. I was obviously aware of the battle between Clinton and Obama, but never really learned much about Hillary, since after all, she didn’t become our president. Specifically for Clinton, the author describes her as a real person with a personality, issues to overcome (like having little support by those representing her), and having a family. It sounds a little cliché, but this backs story brought Clinton to life after I’d never really given her much thought. It seems like the general consensus of the nation is that politicians run like machines, and it’s easy to forget that they are individuals. Game Change is interesting in that it combines the individual with their politics. Being a politician is hectic and no easy journey. Public image is of utmost importance, and although I didn’t necessarily agree with Clinton’s ideals, I have to lend her a bit of sympathy for what she must have gone through with being put in the spotlight and dealing with Bill’s personal life. What I primarily took from this section was the reminder that beneath the platforms, campaigns, advertising, and publicity, politicians have ideas and morals just like regular people do, and just because they are running for leadership positions in society and must put on a show to win a race does not mean that they lack individualism or personality.
ReplyDeleteThe book is very interesting to read since it gives the reader a direct look at the basic foundations of todays politics and how they are run by social status, power, money, and not political ideas. The entire spiel of running for president or senator seems to be entirely about the candidates social statute and their personas. I hope that further on the book will go more into depth of their ideas and agendas.
ReplyDeleteWithin he first few chapters Hillary and Obama are both portrayed towards the reader with unique qualities and amplified flaws. For me, the book is focusing a lot on the candidates personal flaws and so called "sixth senses". Hillary is portrayed to be a woman of strength, idealism with a well built social identity. Although, some might believe that back in 2004 Hillary's decision to keep her promise and finish her term in the senate was unwise I support her decision.
Obama on the other hand comes across as the new kid on the block and throughout the chapters strikes me as "cocky". He is "smarter than the average bear" and wants to make sure that everyone knows that he is the alpha dog. His self assurance and so called confidence is what probably dubbed him as a very good candidate for the presidential election. I wonder if Clinton saw Obama's running for President as a betrayal since she "took him under her wing" and taught him a lot especially how to survive in the Senate.
I think that the most interesting part about this book is seeing what really goes down when the cameras aren't filming. Almost all of what we get to see is what the candidates and their team want us to see, we know what they want us to know, and their image is carefully constructed by a bunch of trained professionals to be put forth for the public. This whole book reveals the "reality" of the campaign and the candidate. Out of the four chapters that we read, the last one was the one that resonated the best with me. Obama's struggle to get his family on board with his running for president was an aspect of the race I had never considered but totally makes sense. Funnily enough it reminded me of a disney channel movie from when we were younger (something about the presidents daughter, I forget the exact title) but basically there was one scene where this president (obviously a pretend one) was scolding his young daughter about something she had done and while it was a minor mistake, the whole premise of his argument was that she was the presidents daughter and therefor had to behave as much. She countered that he had signed up for this, not her, and she just wanted to be a "normal girl" not burdened with her father responsibilities. I remembered siding with this character, mostly because I was a bratty preteen, but also because I understood what she meant on a much much smaller scale. My dad has been an administrator in our school district since I was little and this occasionally made it so that I had to deal with different things than maybe my friends did. For example during the school shooting while every single one of my friends stayed home during the "school shooting", my mom sent me to school because if the administration was saying that everything was safe and encouraging people to go to school, what would it look like if one of their daughters did not go to school. Of course being the presidents daughter is on a totally other scale than being a high administrators daughter. I cant even imagine the scrutiny the family has to go through, and by the way it was described in the book, I never want to. Of course we have seen plenty of family members (cough cough Bush Twins) who did not stand up to the standards they were held to, and that reflects poorly on the candidate. All in all I enjoyed the first four chapter of this book and its "behind the scenes" look at the 2008 election.
ReplyDeleteHillary, in the run-up to the 2004 election, made the decision not to recant her Iraq War vote which was getting her a lot of bad publicity. I believe this was a well made decision because it showed that she stuck to her guns, when so many others would flip-flop. This definitely could have helped her in the long run because it would have given her a leg up in the 2008 election. Unfortunately for her, Obama, her quasi-protegé quickly took center stage. This exposed an irony in their relationship.
ReplyDelete...To be continued...
Do you really think that the Iraq War decision was a good one? I think it shows great maturity to realize that you made a mistake and grow from it. If she explained her change of mind thoroughly then perhaps it would have been seen as thoughtfulness, not indecisiveness. Politics and the world around us is an always changing situation, and the ability to adapt to those situations is something that is worth doing.
DeleteIf I’m being completely honest I really was not looking forward to Game Change at all, but once I started it was really easy to read- it reads like a fictional book. Sometimes it’s hard though to remember that the characters are all real and these were their actual thoughts. I found all the descriptions of Hillary to be really interesting (rationalist, empiricist, with a bone-deep instinct to calibrate risk and reward) because they definitely match her TV persona. A lot of times the way we see politicians on TV is not who they really are, but I was not surprised at all to hear any of Hillary’s thoughts because they definitely seem true to who she is. I was a bit surprised to hear the original descriptions of Obama (he could come across as cocky) because he didn’t strike me at all as the cocky type. Another thing that really killed me was all of Bill Clinton’s crap that Hillary had to deal with. Although I’m not the biggest Hillary fan (quite frankly she scares me), I did feel bad that everywhere she went, rumors about Bill’s newest affair would always surface that seemed to taint her image. Overall, this book so far has been interesting because I never thought about what a game politics really is- everything is so strategic (the way Reid looks at Obama’s strengths and weaknesses as a candidate/how Hillary has to work hard to alter her stance on the Iraq war to help her campaign). Most of the time, we only think of politics as TV debates and the like, but this book proves that there’s definitely a huge behind-the-scenes show that goes on constantly.
ReplyDeleteI find it kind of funny how Hilary Clinton, a former first lady, was involved in so much crap prior to running for election. Consumed in conspiracies and humiliations like the Lewinsky ordeal and Bill's impeachment, she didn't start her election campaign on the best foot. The Lewinsky affair thought did render her somewhat sympathetic and mature during a crazy time. I commend her for finishing out her 6 years of senate service, though, as not doing so would have been a huge detract meant from her campaign.
ReplyDeleteWhat surprised me about the book was the revelation of how a simple election can become something more than a choice between several candidates for a certain governmental position. Instead, it transfigures itself into a highly charged personal battle. "Game Change" reveals just how personal elections can become, yet it also unmasked some of the people behind the election, including the candidates, in ways that I could not have imagined. For example, I never held a doubt in my mind that Hillary Clinton would ever consider not running for president in 2008. For me, that picture simply did not sit with me as accurate, since I always imagined Mrs. Clinton as something of a stalwart, someone who flies into the fray without a touch of ambivalence. Furthermore, I could not believe that this figurative political bulldog would decide not to run for president in 2004, on the basis of a promise that she made to her constituents. Sure, they might have crucified her, but Obama also promised to serve out a full term in the Senate, ran for president, won, and still only received flak for being "too inexperienced." I believe that Mrs. Clinton exudes experience, and that she could have run for president in 2004 without being drowned in the flood of angry constituents that she was anticipating. Moreover, Mrs. Clinton's decision to put a lid on her 2004 bid to run culminated in her daughter's opinion, her pleading to serve out her term and fulfill her promise. Maybe, in the back of her mind, Clinton also had some sort of concern for her family's well-being, yet I doubt that this inkling of doubt should have prevented her from running; her husband's devotion to the trade of politics simply runs too deep, and his galavanting across the country in a friend's private jet illustrated the separation between the two, a lack of consideration or even a hint of dependence. On the other hand, Democrats, such as Harry Reid, supported Obama generally because they believed that he possessed an abundance of qualities that America would love to see: great ambition, and a strong belief in the need for change. Unfortunately, Clinton, as I mentioned before, was initially not sure if she should begin her 2008 presidential run. Her husband's scandalous actions continued to scorch her colleagues' opinions of her legitimacy as a presidential candidate. The book essentially goes on to dig Clinton an even deeper hole, painting her campaign as one fueled on vengeance and conflict, rather than Obama's slick operation; the books prods at Hillary's indecisiveness, while singing nothing but praises for Barak's well-organized book tour/fundraiser campaign rehearsal. As far as why people will weather the torturous and lonely hell of a campaign and the hardships to follow in office, I believe that, while some people genuinely wish to improve this country for the better, many others enjoy the the position, and the immense power and prestige that that said position entails.
ReplyDelete