Game Change Chapters 1-4

Chapter 1: In this chapter, Hilary Clinton decides to not drop out of the running for the Democratic nomination and refused to let John Kerry gain popular support from the party and become their nominee without a fight.  I don't feel that this was the wisest choice because maybe if she rallied behind Kerry in 2004 her support of him would have been just enough to have him elected president.  Kerry would have then given her a good job and then she could have ran again four years later.  Clinton's initial relationship with Obama is ironic because she set out to destroy him in the 2008 elections when the two would have been more successful working together.


Chapter 2: Key Democrats encouraged Barack Obama to run for the presidency because he was seen as a young and charismatic leader who would appeal to a wide range of Americans.  It was his youth, his charisma, and his skills as an orator which helped to qualify him for the job.  What gave them pause was Clinton having more political experience than Obama and that she has been a household name far longer than Obama ever was.  Their support of Obama was clandestine because he relatively very unknown and they didn't know how the American people would respond to him at first.


Chapter 3: Clinton faced challenges in her candidacy such as the stigma that America did not want a woman to become president and the stigma that she was just riding on her husband's political coattails.  I personally do not sympathize wirh her because she knew what she was getting into when she wanted to run for president how difficult it would be and she knew of the challenges that she was up against.  I feel like the book tends to sympathize with her cause, contrary to my opinion.


Chapter 4: I think that the process of getting someone in my family or a spouse to run for president would be extremely difficult and quite frankly not worth my time.  I feel this way because why would a majority of the country vote for somebody in my family.  Running for president as it was described by David Plouffe to Barack Obama does not sound appealing to me due to all of the time, work, and money that must be put into the effort.  People still want to run for the country's highest office for all of the prestige and the responsibility they want to tackle.  Clinton and Obama wanted to both run because they both wanted the leadership and power that comes with being President of the United States.  Their drive is defined differently through Obama's skills with speaking and Clinton was more focused on attacking Obama ona personal level during the campaign.