John Heilemann and Mark Halperin discuss their book, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.

Monday -  March 1st, 2010 at 7 p.m.
First Parish Church Meetinghouse in Cambridge
On the corner of Mass. Ave. and Church St.

$5 tickets are on sale now, click here to purchase. You can also purchase tickets at the Harvard Bookstore or call 617.661.1515 to pay by credit card.

Harvard Book Store is excited to welcome journalists JOHN HEILEMANN and MARK HALPERIN for a gossipy and political conversation about their new exploration of the 2008 presidential campaign, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.

In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton—and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama’s partner and America’s face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin.

In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country’s leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, despite the thinness of his résumé, he could somehow beat the odds to become the nation’s first African American president? How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape—and warp—Hillary’s supposedly unstoppable bid? What was behind her husband’s furious outbursts and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Palin merely painfully out of her depth—or troubled in more serious ways?

Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus." They unearth the quiet conspiracy in the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton’s personal life might cripple Hillary’s presidential prospects. They expose the twisted tale of John Edwards’s affair with Rielle Hunter, the truth behind the downfall of Rudy Giuliani, and the doubts of those responsible for vetting Palin about her readiness for the Republican ticket—along with the McCain campaign staff’s worries about her fitness for office. And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state.

“A thoroughly researched, well-paced and occasionally very amusing read.... The result is something that conveys the feel, or perhaps more accurately the smell, of one of recent history’s most thrilling elections."—The Economist

About the authors:

John Heilemann is the national political correspondent and columnist for New York magazine. An award-winning journalist and author of Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era, he is a former staff writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The Economist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Mark Halperin is editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time magazine. He is the author of The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President and the coauthor of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008. He has covered six presidential elections, including those during his decade as the political director for ABC News. He lives in Manhattan.