Game Change 3 - HBO, Trump and Clinton

We all knew HBO was going to do a Game Change based on the 2016 election, but this time it’s going to be a miniseries.

Sweet. I loved the original Game Change (the book). I had no idea there was a Game Change 2 about the 2012 election.

Downloading now on my Kindle app.

Man, this is gonna be interesting. I wonder how quickly the insider stories are gonna come out, though. Also wonder if Danny Strong is writing this one.

So I started reading Game Change 2 today, about the 2012 election (Romney vs Obama).

And surprisingly, the first chapter is all about Donald Trump, and Birthirism, and him using that as a platform to potentially run for the Presidency. And Obama making the effort to find the Long Form Birth Certificate to give it to Trump, and then just in case he didn’t get the message, really giving it to him at the White House Correspondence Dinner, where Trump sat fuming while Obama delivered the lines.

This book was released in 2013, so they couldn’t have known Trump would later run for President again, be the Republican nominee, and win the White House. It’s just funny to see the emphasis on him early on in this book about 2012.

Yeah, nobody would have been that pessimistic 4 years ago…

I didn’t think Game Change 2 was as interesting as the first one, but it’s still very good. I’m looking forward to this.

Reading Game Change 2 now, most of what I read about Romney, I like. The fact that he takes his time deliberating on a decision and wants as many opinions as possible. The fact that he values science, the fact that he was actually proud of his Romneycare bill and didn’t want to backtrack and disavow it like everyone was telling him to do. Certainly, in the age of Trump, Romney looks like such a hugely better choice in comparison.

But at the same time, this whole thing about him and his wife Anne feeling like they really had to run, not because he wanted to, or she wanted him to, but that they felt that Obama was doing such a poor job that he was going to ruin the country. I can’t figure out that disconnect. Remember this was late 2010 we’re talking about. Obama had really done so much wrong in Romney’s eyes by then to think he was ruining the country? Basically the stimulus package in 2009 not having the right incentives, rescuing the auto industry instead of letting them go into a structured bankruptcy, and passing the ACA. That’s it. Those 3 big things he felt were going to ruin the country?

I’m a little past half way now in Game Change 2, and just like in the first book there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes facts here that I was completely unaware of. The only problem is that these facts about Romney, Santorum, Newt Gengrich are less interesting than the facts in the first book. It’s still a great read though. I’m up to the stage now where we’re headed into April 2012 and it’s clear to everyone finally that Romney is going to be the nominee.

As I was waiting in the room with my wife on Thursday night, waiting as our first baby was on his way, I was awake on and off for about 24 hours until the baby finally came. And during most of those hours, I read and finished the second half of Game Change 2.

It’s a fascinating book. I had no idea how close Obama came to disaster in that election thanks to that first debate performance. The electorate was teetering and it was so critical to have a good follow up town hall debate. Of course, all of us who lived through it remember how well he performed in that debate. But the book starts at a point where a mock debate with John Kerry playing the part of Mitt Romney was going really poorly for Obama. And it made all his team think that this could mean the election.

That’s the setup, and by the time the book gets to that point again by the end, it really makes you appreciate how many things had gone poorly for Mitt up to that point.

Anyway, it’s a shame that Game Change 2 will likely never get an HBO movie or any other movie, but I found it a very enjoyable read.

Holy crap! Huge congrats, Rock8dad!

Much too soon for Game Change 3. I think these stories need quite a few years to pass so we have some perspective.