Game Change (54 page)

• Saving Graces
  (E. Edwards), 127, 135
  
• Scher, Peter, 133–34
  
• Scheunemann, randy, 370–71, 404
  
• Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy, 217–18, 339
  
• Schmidt, Steve, 296–98, 301–2, 308, 310, 314–15, 318
  
  • as McCain campaign senior strategist, 328–30, 332, 355–56, 358–68, 370, 383–84, 396–98, 401–5, 408–10, 414–16
    
• Schumer, Chuck, 47 433
  
  • Obama encouraged by, 36–37, 38, 116
    
• Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 296, 314, 356
  
• Sebelius, Kathleen, 267, 335, 339
  
• Secret Service, 4, 13, 109, 125, 164, 259, 280, 426
  
• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 378, 380
  
• Senate, U.S., 51, 271, 284, 294
  
  • Banking Committee of, 339
    
  • Commerce Committee of, 305–6
    
  • Democratic leadership in, 34–38, 388
    
  • Foreign Relations Committee of, 28, 336
    
  • policy debates in, 28, 297
    
• Shaheen, Billy, 161–62, 198
  
• Shanahan, Kathleen, 299
  
• Sharpton, Al, 198
  
• Sheehan, Michael, 346, 347, 349, 391, 406
  
• Shelby, Richard, 389
  
• Shriver, Maria, 222
  
• Shumaker, Terry, 77–78, 79, 178
  
• Shuster, David, 225, 226
  
• Simon, Paul, 26, 63
  
• Simon and Schuster, 15
  
• Sioux Falls
  Argus-Leader
  , 256
  
• Smith, Andrew, 366, 408–9
  
• Smith, Jean Kennedy, 227
  
• Snow, Kate, 343
  
• Soetoro, Maya, 426
  
• Soetoro, Stanley Ann Dunham, 242, 350, 425
  
• Solis Doyle, Patti, 58, 79
  
  • family background of, 43, 195
    
  • as Hillary Clinton’s closest aide and
    
  • campaign manager, 5, 14, 16–17, 19–20, 49–50, 52, 80–83, 88, 92, 95–97, 153–54, 157, 172, 179, 181–83, 187–88, 193, 195–96, 202–3, 211–12, 265–66
    
  • loyalty and discretion of, 5, 17, 43, 44, 181–82, 183, 227
    
  • Obama’s team joined by, 339, 345, 413
    
  • resignation of, 226–27
    
• Sommers, Mike, 386–87
  
• Soros, George, 69, 106
  
• Sosnik, Doug, 187, 194, 196
  
• South Carolina, 63, 103, 141–42, 205–15, 354
  
  • black vote in, 195, 198, 203, 205, 210, 213, 215
    
• South Carolina primary of 2000, 276
  
• South Carolina primary of 2008, 124, 195–96, 202–15, 227
  
  • Bill Clinton’s outbursts in, 9, 207–15, 332
    
  • Edwards’s campaign in, 203–5, 222
    
  • Hillary Clinton’s campaign in, 202–3, 205–15, 222, 223, 252
    
  • McCain’s campaign and win in, 298, 311–12
    
  • Obama’s campaign and win in, 198–200, 202, 204–11, 213–15, 221
    
• South Dakota primary of 2008, 256, 258
  
• Spears, Britney, 15, 330–31
  
• Spielberg, Steven, 85–86
  
• Spitzer, Eliot, 147
  
• Springfield, Ill., 28, 74–75, 83, 105, 118, 235, 245
  
• Springsteen, Bruce, 424
  
• Steele, Michael, 391
  
• Stephanopoulos, George, 241
  
• Stevens, Ted, 359, 364
  
• Stewart, Jimmy, 305
  
• Stewart, Jon, 318
  
• stock market crash of 1929, 412
  
• Story of My Life
  (McInerney), 132
  
• St. Paul, Minn., 258–59, 357, 366, 369
  
• Strickland, Ted, 100, 152, 255
  
• Summers, Larry, 380
  
• Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses of 2008, 153, 181, 190–91, 195–97, 199–200, 203, 204, 221–25, 291, 312, 314
  
• Supreme Court, U.S., 296, 365, 367, 399
  
• Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 21
  
• Take Back America, 45–46
  
• Tancredo, Tom, 295
  
• Tanden, Neera, 5, 81–82, 85, 92, 187, 212
  
• Team of Rivals
  (Goodwin), 83, 419
  
• Tennessee republican Party, 254
  
• terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 9, 45, 234, 246, 287, 397, 418
  
• Tewes, Paul, 107, 151, 159
  
• Texas primary and caucuses of 2008, 224, 226, 228–33, 236, 239, 244, 248, 255, 316
  
• Thain, John, 382
  
• This Week with George Stephanopoulos
  , 166
  
• Thompson, Fred, 288, 295, 299
  
• Time
  , 68, 193, 314
  
• Today
  , 149, 399
  
• Trinity United Church of Christ, 234, 235–36, 238, 253
  
• Trippi, Joe, 138, 163, 168, 171, 203–4
  
• Truman, Harry, 219
  
• Tsongas, Paul, 90, 267
  
• Tuskegee medical experiments, 246
  
• Tyson, Laura, 380
  
• UBS Americas, 378
  
• Udall, Mo, 323–24
  
• United Nations, 5, 398–99
  
  • General Assembly of, 395
    
  • weapons inspection of Iraq by, 46
    
• U.S. News & World Report
  , 306
  
• Vermont primary of 2008, 224, 316
  
• Vietnam War, 21, 301
  
  • McCain’s service in, 272, 274, 276, 279, 301–2, 317, 318, 324
    
• Vilmain, Teresa, 97, 99, 150, 152–53, 165, 173
  
• Vilsack, Tom, 18–19, 26, 29, 35, 56, 100, 152–53, 164, 171–74
  
• Virginia, 81, 375, 426
  
  • Hillary Clinton’s headquarters in, 101, 150, 157, 188, 193–97, 212, 255, 259–60
    
  • McCain’s headquarters in, 277, 278, 329
    
• Vogue
  , 101, 362
  
• Volcker, Paul, 378
  
• Walk the Line
  , 86
  
• Wallace, George, 421
  
• Wallace, Mark, 398, 400–401, 404–5, 415
  
• Wallace, Nicolle, 355, 366, 369, 371, 372, 395, 397–400, 415
  
• Wall Street Journal
  , 240, 345, 418
  
• Warner, Jack, 85
  
• Warner, Mark, 35, 56
  
• war on terror, 371
  
• Warren, rick, 69, 390
  
• Washington, D.C., 123–24, 350, 395–7
  
  • Clinton home in, 14, 15, 77, 79, 82, 83, 150, 156, 196
    
• Washington Post
  , 39, 90, 99, 117, 161, 170, 316, 373, 418
  
• Washington State caucuses of 2008, 225
  
• Washington University, 397
  
• Wasilla, Alaska, 359, 396, 403
  
• Watergate scandal, 327
  
• Weather Underground, 241–42, 408
  
• Weaver, John, 271–79, 281–85, 306–7, 314, 315
  
• Webb, Jim, 339
  
• West Virginia primary of 2008, 251–53
  
• Whitaker, Eric, 116, 236, 248
  
• White House, 15, 44, 272, 297, 316, 366, 384, 387
  
  • Lincoln Bedroom in, 86, 194
    
  • oval office in, 24, 26, 45, 230, 274, 344
    
• West Wing of, 19, 368
  
• Whitewater scandal, 15
  
• Whouley, Michael, 95
  
• Wilkinson, Jim, 393
  
• William J. Clinton Foundation, 433
  
• Williams, Brian, 110, 146–48, 414
  
• Williams, Maggie, 16, 19, 80, 82, 152, 187, 195, 196, 212, 226, 228
  
• Wilmington, Del., 336, 341, 405, 411
  
• Winfrey, Oprah, 159, 165, 265, 330
  
• Wisconsin primary of 2008, 228, 238
  
• Wolf, Robert, 106, 378
  
• Wolfson, Howard, 4–5, 81–82, 84, 88–89, 91–92, 97, 165–66, 173–74, 187–88, 194, 225, 240, 256
  
• Wonder, Stevie, 152, 248
  
• World Series, 287
  
• World War I, 370
  
• World War II, 370
  
• Wright, Jeremiah, 9, 70, 234–39, 241, 243–49, 253, 331, 333
  
  • inflammatory sermons of, 75, 234, 235, 237–38, 239, 246
    
  • Obama’s close association with, 75, 235–36, 238, 239, 245–48, 408
    
  • Obama’s repudiation of, 247, 410
    
• Yale Law School, 39, 81, 212, 230
  
• Young, Andrew, 167–69
  
• YouTube, 107, 111, 139, 211, 224, 238, 294, 295, 354–55, 406
  
• Zeleny, Jeff, 208
  

THE IDEA FOR THIS book arose in the spring of 2008 out of a pair of firm convictions. The first was that the election we had both been following intensely for more than a year was as riveting and historic a spectacle as modern politics had ever produced. The second was that, despite wall-to-wall media coverage, much of the story behind the headlines had not been told. What was missing and might be of enduring value, we agreed, was an intimate portrait of the candidates and spouses who (in our judgment) stood a reasonable chance of occupying the White House: Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, John and Elizabeth Edwards, and John and Cindy McCain.

The vast majority of the material in these pages was taken from more than three hundred interviews with more than two hundred people conducted between July 2008 and September 2009. Almost all of the interviews took place in person, in sessions that often stretched over several hours. We set out to speak with every individual named in the book; only a handful declined to participate. Many also provided us with emails, memos, contemporaneous notes, recordings, schedules, and other forms of documentation.

All of our interviews—from those with junior staffers to those with the candidates themselves—were conducted on a “deep background” basis, which means we agreed not to identify the subjects as sources in any way. We believed this was essential to eliciting the level of candor on which a book of this sort depends. To a very large extent, we were interviewing people with whom one or both of us had longstanding professional relationships, and thus a solid basis to judge both the quality of the information being provided and the veracity of the providers.

While we made great efforts to compare and verify differing accounts of the same events, we were struck by how few fundamental disputes we encountered among our sources. In part, this owes to timing. We conducted many of our interviews about the nomination fights in the summer of 2008, when the combatants were out of the heat of battle and ready to talk, but their memories were still fresh. And the same dynamic held true in the months after the general election, when we turned intensely to that topic. In most every scene in the book, we have included only material about which disagreements among the players were either nonexistent or trivial. With regard to the few exceptions, we brought to bear deliberate professional consideration and judgment.

With the help of the participants, we have reconstructed dialogue extensively—and with extreme care. Where dialogue is within quotation marks, it comes from the speaker, someone who was present and heard the remark, contemporaneous notes, or transcripts. Where dialogue is not in quotes, it is paraphrased, reflecting only a lack of certainty on the part of our sources about precise wording, not about the nature of the statements. Where specific thoughts, feelings, or states of mind are rendered in italics, they come from either the person identified or someone to whom she or he expressed those thoughts or feelings directly.

No doubt some of our principal dramatis personae will find images of themselves in these pages that they would rather not see in print. But in every case, we have tried to tell their stories in two ways: as fairly as possible from the outside and as empathetically as we could from behind their eyes. In doing so, we have tried to address the multitude of vital questions that daily journalism (and hourly blogofying) obsessed over briefly and then passed by, or never grappled with in the first place. How did Obama, a freshman senator with few tangible political accomplishments, convince himself that he should be, and
could
be, America’s first African American president? What role did Bill Clinton actually play in his wife’s campaign? Why did McCain pick the unknown and untested governor of Alaska as his running mate? And who is Sarah Palin, really?

Although no work of this kind, lacking the distance and perspective of time, can hope to be definitive, we are convinced that some answers are more readily discovered in the ground that lies between history and journalism—precisely the spot that we were aiming for and believe this book occupies. Our first and most obvious debt is to our sources, who spent countless hours with us in person and on the phone. We would also like to thank their assistants, who facilitated many of the interviews.

We are grateful to our bosses, Adam Moss and Rick Stengel, the editors of
New York
magazine and
Time
, respectively, who granted us the space we needed to take on this project; our agents, Andrew Wylie and Scott Moyers at the Wylie Agency and Jeff Jacobs at CAA, without whom we would have been lost; Richard Plepler of HBo, for his encouragement and perspicacity; our editor Tim Duggan, our publisher Jonathan Burnham, and the rest of the team at HarperCollins—Kathy Schneider, Tina Andreadis, Kate Pruss Pinnick, Leslie Cohen, and Allison Lorentzen—for placing a big bet on this book and laboring to make it a success.

A number of friends and colleagues in the journalism racket provided us support, including work from which we drew wisdom or memories that we tapped: Mike Allen, Matt Bai, Dan Balz, David Chalian, John Dickerson, Robert Draper, Joshua Greene, John Harris, Al Hunt, Joe Klein, Ryan Lizza, Jonathan Martin, John McCormick, Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, Liza Mundy, Adam Nagourney, Bill Nichols, John Richardson, Michael Shear, Roger Simon, Ben Smith, Jeffrey Toobin, and Jeff Zeleny. In the closing phase, Aaron Kiersh contributed careful and timely research. And we were assisted throughout by an armada of transcribers, of whom two in particular deserve mention: Frankie Thomas and Steven Yaccino.

A special expression of gratitude is due Elise O’Shaughnessy of
Vanity Fair
, a gifted editor who came up with the book’s title and then performed miracles to keep the manuscript from turning into
War and Peace
; we salute her poise under pressure and artful way with the scalpel. Another profound word of thanks is due Karen Avrich, whose tireless and brilliant work as a writer, editor, and researcher is evident on every page that follows.

A panoply of pals provided me with less tangible, but no less invaluable, forms of aid and comfort: Kurt Andersen and Anne Kreamer; Chris Anderson; John Battelle; Lisa Clements; David Dreyer; Mike Elliott and Emma Oxford; Mary Ellen Glynn and Dwight Holton; Katrina Heron; Michael Hirschorn; John Homans; Jeff Kwatinetz; Kerry Luft; Kenny Miller, Rachel Leventhal, and my goddaughter, Zoe Miller-Leventhal; Neil Parker and Kay Moffett; Jeff Pollack; Robert Reich; Jordan Tamagni and Michael Schlein; Will Wade-Gery and Emily Botein; Harry Werksman; Fred and Joanne Wilson.

As ever, I am grateful for the example and support of my father, Richard Heilemann, which keep me on the straight and narrow (more or less), and for the memory of my mother, which sustains me in all my endeavors.

Finally, Diana Rhoten, my wife and salvation, deserves a bouquet the size of Botswana. Without her as a perpetual source of patience, reassurance, and inspiration—not to mention the occasional dose of tough love and ample portions of homestretch home cooking—I would never have made it through intact.

I send deep gratitude to Josh Tyrangiel and my colleagues at
Time
and Time.com, as well as to Ina Avrich, Bob Barnett, Gary Foster, Kyle Froman, Gil Fuchsberg, Nancy Gabriner, Charlie Gibson, Debbie Halperin, Bianca Harris, Dan Harris, Andrew Kirtzman, Ben Kushner, and David Westin. I am grateful for the guidance and eternal inspiration of Peter Jennings.

Getting the book done required the support and smiles of Megan Halperin, Hannah Halperin, Madelyn Halperin, Laura Hartmann, and Peter Hartmann. Thanks to their parents: RoseAnne McCabe, Gary Halperin, Carolyn Hartmann, and David Halperin. And also many thanks to Morton Halperin, Diane Orentlicher, Ina Young, and Joe Young.

Karen Avrich’s awesome professional contributions are noted above. More important than those: almost all of what I have achieved in my work, and in my life, I owe to Karen. By her sense of adventure, her generosity, her strength, her grace, and her example, she makes me a better person.