>> guest: i have not talked and am not going to talk about a book my publisher convinced i should take of richard nixon. i have never written about nixon. only in passing. he comes up in as many flavors, remarkable profile of nixon in the rehnquist choice. i saw him being strong and decisive and comedic when he didn't know he was being funny and when he knew he was being funny. i saw him making good decisions and bad decisions. it is a microcosm of his presidency but there are lots of issues that need to be tucked away and there are some outstanding large issues that aren't mysteries but large issues that need to be put to rest and i am in a unique position to do it and my publisher knows that so i can hopefully put watergate on the shelf because this has been my

planned application for my retirement. i have a lot of fun with it. a book a year is a little bit much. we enjoy cranking them out, we be my wife giving me the tolerance to let me disappear into my office to crank these things out and it keeps you mentally active. >> host: who in history in treat you the most? >> guest: who in history intrigues me the most? tough question. cote i think i read about the presidents, of 43 past presidents now and i have always enjoyed a couple of those in particular. i like washington, lincoln, fdr. at if you tossup as to who would be at the top of the list to i would motion joy reading about. ..

>> mark halperin and national political correspondent john heilemann appeared on c-span "washington journal" to discuss their new thinking book about the 2008 presidential campaign. and the impact of the book on

politics and policy in washington. the program is an hour. >> we are joined by the authors of "game change," mark halperin and john heilemann. mark halperin, let me begin with you. i heard, you are one of you say that you had a list of things that you thought would make huge in this book that it's been out there for a little bit now. we have heard many of the pieces in this book. want on that list hasn't made news or what are you surprised that? >> a lot of things. john and i set out to write a book, we hope people would find an interesting story. a race of a lifetime. but we were also going for breaking news because we thought there were things that were uncovered during the campaign. i will give you one. john will have others. sarah palin was picked by john mccain. people were shocked when it happened. at the time the mccain campaign said she had been on the list under consideration for

a long time and that she received as much background check of so-called betting as any of the other people john mccain consider. there is skepticism about that at the time but like so much that would write about and "game change" the kind of parade, political journalism parade had begun. so this is one case where we went back to say what was the truth? the truth is that she was brought into the game for consideration for mccain as mccain's running mate very late, after their main focus, joe lieberman fell apart as an option. they need a game changing pic. lieberman was a game changing. in the book we quote from for the first time anywhere the vetting report done by a young washington lawyer who was asked on a friday afternoon to get ready and then in the face of less than two years look into sarah palin's background, not by making any phone calls or interviewing anybody, but simply doing online searches because

they needed to keep it a secret. quoting from that report, looking at the process by which mccain picked a virtual stranger as his running mate is something we thought would get a lot of attention and has gotten very much. >> i agree with mark. there is a ton of stuff in the book that hasn't gotten the kind of attention we would have expected. i will give you three quick examples that one of them is kind of a macro story, which is in the wake of the campaign one of the pieces of connection of wisdom that was propounded by the obama operation was from the very beginning from the time obama got into the race to the very end the question of race, his race, was something they didn't think about, it wasn't factored into his decision to run. they didn't talk about it during the campaign. that was one of the things they said over and over again after his election. and throughout the book book, "game change," we talk about how much they were upset with race as a political factor. we talk about how in the full campaign against campaign again

mccain, and after at after to add. they thought were the kind of as the mccain campaign will going to run against him that would be racially, had a response to that. been as kind of topic a in some ways. to more quickly -- >> before you do, let me show you that part of the book where you talk about that. you say whether cash campaign was coming up with negative ads on the fly, the well-heeled obama were running a stealthy high-tech lab to discover which attacks are most days and to develop responses. >> i will stay with that. i think it is fascinating. they produce dozens upon dozens of spots. and to look at those ads, to prepare to them and to produce dozens of spots that would deal with the problem. of the question of wynnewood obama's alleged connections to

muslim -ism, when would that become, something the mccain campaign start pushing out. but the about campaign was trying to respond. we have a great anecdote in the book. the obama campaign produce an ad to take care of all of the questions about his raise, his alleged muslim -ism and his lack of patriotism all in one ad. and we tell the story presumedly in the book that obama, when he reads the script to this ridiculous ad, he reads the script that uses you guys, this is too much. i can't say this. it's kind of a silly ad. >> we have what i think is a very, very strong chapter on the economic crisis, financial disaster. which has incredible reporting i believe about what happened in a white house meeting that george bush held with john mccain and barack obama. i think it is hardly been mentioned in the coverage, and it's i think very, very interesting. shows how unprepared mccain was. shows how well prepared obama

was. a republican agent meeting says as he listened to obama take over the meeting effectively that it seemed to them that if you close your eyes you would have believed this was the president of the united states, not george bush or john mccain. we have a very interesting story about david and marine, in the early part of the nomination, how that came to be and how this kind of mischievous diane between his famous hollywood mogul and his "new york times" times, the first blow to clinton's inevitability. >> let's dig into that all a bit more. mark halperin, what john was just talking about there, about the column. there's a back story that she was trying to write that column before she finally got him to agree to do in. >> she was. it's an interesting case of two, not only prominent people, but iconic people. the most prominent "new york times" columnist really of our time.

and then david geffen, this incredible hollywood figure. david geffen is part of dreamworks. they were big supporters. they raise a lot of money for the. david geffen state in the lincoln bedroom. but he, like so many prominent liberals, including in hollywood, had turned against the clinton. he was unhappy with president clinton's choice of pardons at the end of his second term, not pardoning granting a pardon that david geffen had lobbied for. pardoning marc rich, the fugitive financier. so geffen had turned on the clintons and felt that they were, if not actually corrupt, they were kind of morally bankrupt. he loved obama that he saw him speak at the democratic convention in 2004. he reached out to them. started a relationship with him. with maureen dowd heard david geffen speak at the 92nd wives yet new york and any question about the clintons, about hillary's chances, david geffen

was very tough on hillary clinton, and maureen in the audience was struck not just by how tough he was in his talking about the clintons were out of, but the audience reaction to qdr in new york, the state that hillary clinton represents, and the audience seemed very enthusiastic about the notion of criticism of hillary clinton. so over the course of a long period of time, maureen is lobbying david geffen to take what he said at that event, amplified it to her in an interview. and by coincidence, she is out in california on the night before david geffen is going to host a major fundraiser for barack obama, she convinces him to do the interview. the. >> what year is this bequest this is 2007. this is a critical period, because barack obama has gotten in the race. he is clearly create a lot of excitement, and in communities that are vitally important, if you're trying to become the democratic nominee for president, hollywood, new york,

liberal circles where you're trying -- killer was trying to sort of not let obama rise up as a major competitor to her. so for david geffen to agree to host this fundraiser was a big blow to the clintons that they were desperate to try to overshadow that because they show their hollywood support so key in the democratic party would not be monolithic. maureen convinces geffen to do the interview. the next night her column goes on the web. and again, by coincidence, both barack obama and maureen dowd are at this fundraiser. and geffen knows the article is going to run. he printed out and takes it over to obama and shows it to him and his this thing might cause trouble. and obama's had trouble for who? because it was going to cost any trouble for obama. and as it plays out it was even worse for the clintons than they thought. this is the first time a lot of the issues that bill clinton's personal life out of the question whether the clintons were old politics, whether they were too loose with the truth,

was laid out. the one-to punch laid out was devastating and public for the clintons are personally behind because of all of the representative. >> i'm going to turn this over to our views. i'm sure many people are eager to ask the question. sylvia, democrats like him your first. >> caller: i saw you on another show, and you're talking about the bill and hillary were upset during the iowa caucuses, that the obama campaign had cheated. from what i read and from what i heard, was that the reason they were so upset is because the obama campaign bussed in lots of young people from illinois with the help of a court. and they showed up at the caucuses early. they took over the caucuses and then they locked out the hillary voters.

>> john heilemann? >> the caller is exactly right about what the clintons believe. that is to the letter what we report in the book is that hillary had been worried about this possibility for a while. she had been concerned the caucuses were too loose and there was some chance because obama was home state senator from illinois that this could happen. we report in the book how on the night of the iowa caucuses when hillary has come in third, she and the president of a former president clinton are in their hotel suite and they are as angry as their eight have ever seen them. she finishes in a far off third. they are incredibly upset. and the president, former president clinton starts going on about the fact that all these people, 239,000 people had shown up, no one had ever expected. that was double the amount of people who are children of and i will caucus in 2004. it was in comprehend both to him that that many people could have shown up.

he clung to that notion for long after the tobacco report were reported in the book that five days later around the new hampshire primary has suggested to hillary that she raised this question in the debate and say that the caucuses, the outcome of the caucuses should be invalidated because obama has done this, president clinton was suggesting they should hire lawyers and challenge the result of the iowa caucuses. i think we cannot know with any certainty whether that charges two, but i would say that we spoke to many of the clintons iowa staff, people had been long expected in iowa politics. people who are very loyal to the clintons. none of them believe the charges were true. they say that as upset as the claims were there looking for some excuse for her performance there, and these were people who have every reason to believe that it was too. and all of them who know the iowa caucuses best, all of them believe it's just a false charge that any on the independent line. >> amy, good morning.

and he i'm going to remind you to turn the television down, all right? i'm going to move on and put you on hold. allen on republican line, good morning, how are you? >> doing well, i have not read the book, but these two fellows being so closely connected to the campaign and everybody who was involved and all the candidates, i want to know why it is that the most important pieces of all these people, clintons, obama, mccain, how everything was shielded. and the most important aspects never came out, and the democrats were protected down to every miniscule little whatever, the most important things, they didn't come out there but when it came to mccain and sarah palin, have they attacked her and went after her for clothes

and her eating habits, but yet when it comes to not even reporting on any of the policies or beliefs or agenda, stuff, that obama was going to go for, which is doing now, not having his thesis, any of his background and have they would say he is so smart and intelligent, and sarah palin it so i'm qualified which had been elected. you know, starting in the school system, whatever, municipal, mayor to governor, and she is all stupid and irresponsible, but she had held all these offices. >> i think we got your point. mark halperin? >> greta, we knew that one of the challenges of writing a book about politics in a state of age a lot of our political discourse to the media and politics directly has become very partisan. we're trying to write a book and we hope we did, that is not person. because there is nothing here that was not ever reported, not just the caller suggested about the democrats there's it

stuff never report about the republicans. we are heartened by the fact that the book is received praise from people on the left and the right. john hannity said some very nice things about the book as did head shows that i think the strength of the book, the extent it has one in this realm, as we reported everything we could find that we thought was germane to telling the story about both parties, candidates in both parties, without fear of or favor and with an eye toward history and a looming what happened. not covering things up. there has been a concern, i was just a quickly, why wasn't the stuff report in real-time? you know, people are going to be forthcoming the way they were with us in the heat of the campaign. they are too busy and there's too much at stake. we went to see people right after the nomination and right after the general election. when the memories were fresh and willing to cooperate. they understood the project and the importance we hope for history. it's hard to piece this have to get if you don't have the time, as we did, over longer time. 300 interviews with more than 20

people in both parties, long interview. able to sit down and piece it piece it together to the realities of daily journalism these days is the internet and cable, there's no way to do that in daily journalism. you have to do as more of a historical were. >> have you both are good resources that you talked to before this book and got some action from your sources without obviously specifics of who they are? >> we have come and as mark says we both come we talk to a lot of people in the book. mark cited the figure that most of these people are people that we have one or the other of us or both of us had long relationships and have been covering politics for close to 20 years. the relationships that we have with the sources was the basis on which the book was built. if we hadn't had such strong relationships with our sources i don't think we could have done what we did. we have been hardened also by the response, which is been uniformly positive. people have sent me notes of congratulations. i think as far as we can tell

from what we have heard and we haven't heard from everybody but we've heard from an awful lot of people, people feel so we've got the story right and we have done it in a way they think is both fair, accurate and good for history in the sense that we captured things about the campaign and have these people live through the campaign, how to change them and have the strength and weaknesses affected the way in which they waged a campaign that are important for people of the going to be looking back at this campaign for many years to come to understand what happens back back to georgia and amy on the independent line. good morning. >> caller: sorry about that. you know, i am an independent. i used to be a democrat, and when this past election with barack obama came around, i ended up dropping the party completely. but i was really looking for at the time was a candidate that would really represent the country well. and i know, i know for a fact,

the fact that the media was there boosting obama up like the way they did bush, which they actually did do, seems to be the gameplay -- plan. for me it is to have an immediate uses could be the next president is going to be the next president. and it's very unfortunate because i did listen to barack obama a few times, about some of the speeches that he said about changing things in washington, but yet he was a supporter of mayor richard daley, which as far as i'm concerned being from illinois was one of the biggest crooks in politics. now, he couldn't even beat the chicago politics. what made him think he was going to change anything in washington? smack john heilemann? >> you know, the role of the me and presidential is huge, i mean, one of the things that's

most interesting and reporting on this campaign is the fact that all of the campaigns feel as though the media was biased against them. they all feel as though that as the caller says they look at the power, expect even president obama's campaign felt that we? >> president obama's campaign, whenever they were confronted with him and i think mark and i would agree that president obama got very favorable coverage in the course of the campaign, it's just not disputable. but based on the questions of something like reverend wright, that they were subjected to, and in many cases they do those things, that things are there is, the rezko relationship, things that were not germane. like every presidential campaign they were felt to me was focus on triviality and things that were non-stories rather than focusing on what the candidate wanted to say about health care policy or economic policy. i think it is a perennial

complaint, and as far as i can see, the media is kind of an equal opportunity in the kind of rigor is that it puts these candidates to pick surprise me people feel as though the media can choose sides, but it's a topic i think that's not going to go away for that reason because it's our media and political culture. >> let's go to the democratic line. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, mark, good morning john, good morning credit. a couple of things. one is i have seen you guys on other shows, and one of the things that is passing to me is the country seems to be in this sort of state of cognitive distance that barack obama, the incompetent, unprepared, qualified to be present. john mccain is the, you know, longtime politician with lots of expected based on what you guys

instead this morning is, to me, the exact opposite, the reverse is true. barack obama seems to be, i mean, hope and change and all that, but he seems to be a very savvy politician, a brilliant strategic thinker. and very well prepared, understands the issues that and get all the buzz right now is about sarah palin who mostly speaks, her book at it is mostly monosyllabic. and i haven't heard her say anything of substance in terms of public policy from the time she started running up until now. so i am just amazed that aren't you amazed the country is so enamored with sarah palin, who lacks intellectual curiosity? and she lacks and she is mostly -- >> a big fan of the models of bollocks i have to disagree with the car there.

you know, with all due respect, he sees the world in a very particular way, and there are millions of americans who see it his way. but there are millions of americans who think that barack obama was a fraud as a candidate and is a horrible president and sarah palin is our salvation. i think that part of what we tried to do in writing "game change" was to rise above what has become the dominant feature of our political discourse, which is a lot political books cable televisiotelevision and the web is to say i have a point of view about the world cup i hate the democrats or hate the republicans and everything i say or write is going to be geared towards reinforcing that point in trying to spread it. we simply want to write a book the real story of what happened in this incredibly exciting campaign with bigger than life characters. and not make it a partisan book. again, as i said before, we've had very positive feedback that we are heartened by by people on the left and right have said to us i may disagree with barack

obama's policies but i was glad to read how he really expect the campaign, get insight to what he is really like. the same with sarah palin, and that is the kind of book we set out to right. we didn't write it for the reason i'm about to say, the potential benefit, but i hope it hasn't been to, which is we do both things that our country discourse has become too partisan. it is not good for government, not good for politics, not good for the future of the country. and we hope that people will think about politics in a different way, more about the drama and about trying to drain it from that pure partisanship that dominates a lot of your calls and a lot of our discourse to on mccain strategy approach to his campaign, you both write this, listening, that was the campaign. the rest was noise. guest: it is a very early part

>> is a very early part of the book were right that in terms of the republican race. talking about how mccain, in the early planning phases of this campaign you have an operation that was all the people around him and look back at his 2000 campaign when he ran his renegade outsider campaign. and they said we lost that we got crushed by the bush machine in 2000, we don't want to run a campaign again. we should build a campaign that is liked it. we should build on the push model which has a big campaign. we should raise a kind of money. we should have a huge operation across the country and we should be formidable and scare everyone else way. the problem is mccain was totally psychologically ill-suited to that kind campaign. as his organization build itself that way, his attitude was why do i need all this? he didn't want to make fund-raising calls. he did want to get in the race as early as they walked into. we are the front runner.

we have to act like a front runner. we can't act like the kind of person that you are most naturally which is this sort of maverick to use his favorite term, kind of candidate. the mismatch between the kind of operation they aspire to go over him and the kind of thing that mccain was personally comfortable with doing created what turned out to be an emulation of his campaign. his campaign over the course of 2007 within the first six month of the campaign is broke. the campaign is lacking in the poll. is miserable. he is firing off his top staff. the meltdown nearly killed him. politically, not personally. he is a much about that mismatch. where mccain is strongest in the book is want to get rid of all these people is like you see him emerge from that in some way when everyone in politics listen to mccain and thought he is dead now. mccain was happier in that situation that he was more comfortable driving around the country and basically a metaphorically speaking kind of a beat up old car was carrying his own bags and going out and

kind of flying by the seat of his pants. i would say when you come back around to the general election against where you don't have that. you can run that kind of campaign. it comes back to bite him again because mccain thinks of himself halfway as a guerrilla candidate and throughout the whole campaign the mismatch between him and obama in terms of organization, finance, muscular strength across the country inns up being a huge crippling disadvantage among other disadvantage the face. it goes to the core of one of the things the book is about, this is why in some sense the personal, the stuff about the high human drama of the campaign is matters enormously because it tells you a lot about mccain's fortunes that you can't understand them without understanding his psychology and how he looked at the politics. it's all about it you can see exactly. >> can i say one thing? we've been honored and pleased

by the amount of attention the book has gotten. and we have done some of the images before this one. this is literally the first time we've had a chance to discuss this topic, and extorted part of the 2008 campaign. so for people who have seen stuff in the book and say, well, i know everything in the book already. we love the quote that you've come to think of it about mccain. because it does define a huge part of the mentality of the republican nominee. again, i do see there's a lot more stories. i think so too have the impression that they've learned everything that is in the book. we think there's more in the book that people be interested in. >> kansas citkansas city, misso. >> caller: when president obama ran he was more in the center of the democratic party, and that's what i voted for. i voted for obama because i thought he was more to the center of the democratic party, not to the left.

he has since become more left than center. and that has made me very disheartened. i have turned from democrat to republican. i'm going to start voting republican. i am going to vote more for the people who are my values, and my type of ideas about this country and how it should be run are in line. because i think our country is out of whack. we are spending too much. the deficit is too high. there's too many people unemployed. and i think obama is not concentrate on what the real problems are in this country. he's concentrating on his ideas. >> mark halperin? >> who was the name of that car? >> nancy. >> i would call that carnegie, a.k.a. david axelrod's worst nightmare.

did not have to be worried about not just for the midterm election for the president of the potential reelection but for having political support in the country to pass this again in the short term. he has done a thing as the most dangerous for any politician. he has lost control for a large segment of the population of his public image, how he's been pretty. the reality is during the campaign he was very skillful at being what george bush successfully did come which is all things to all people. labels can see in his rhetoric and parts of his agenda someone would come to the white house and enact a very general agenda. though some policy differences. the thrust, and the expense, the scope is a similar to what he ran a. so people shouldn't be surprised a range of issues that he is more liberal. at the same time one of the guest rock obama has had since he entered public life is the ability to speak as a unifying figure, to give the people the

sense that he wants to work across the aisle and solve problems in a bipartisan way. that as it turned out partly by choice, part of my circumstances would economic crisis, has led to govern a more partisan way that i thought he would do. and i think that he intended. the result has been in part to alienate collars like that photo, like that citizen, and part of the challenge he faces now is to finish this health care bill that has been defined as a very liberal thing. rightly or not. and move onto an agenda agenda that addresses jobs and deficit reduction in particular at the same time. the state of the union, budget will be opportunities the white house hopes to win back congress like a speck the state of union will be wednesday june the 27th, next week in tampa, steve on independent line. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i did want to say to the host, you took a call earlier from someone who sort of challenging your biased and acted suggested you should be fired.

i just want to come it might make a great thing for c-span to do that, sort of to an empirical door at about the length of calls, which line the coming. just for informational purposes. i think that would be great. but to go more to the point, i have not read the book. but i think that the campaign, it has become so divisive in this country. with the two parties. i'm a big fan that we should have multiple parties. but i think hillary clinton has she shown herselfo b a gracious loser obviously in the campaign, but also what a hard-working woman. look at her and she just is sort of nose to the grindstone, unocal and the secretary of state and i'm going to do the best job i can possibly do for our country, regardless of party. i think in the campaign obama was such a wonderful speaker, is such a wonderful speaker, that he was able to carry the election without ever substance. i am a supporter of his, but at

the same time you have to cover and not just be elected. >> mark halperin, the background on hillary clinton the campaign spent at the very beginning of the book which i got how the hillary and obama relationship is a love story which is a little counterintuitive for people. one of the things that mark and i were surprised to learn was just how much of a fan hillary clinton was a barack obama before either one of them got into this race. we report in a book about her, when he ran for this in 2004, her hosting fundraisers for him in chicago and at her home. bill clinton at a fundraiser fo him in 2004. say there's a superstar in chicago that he was the kind of candidate that she and her husband had always wanted to support for the democratic party that is very intelligent, african-american candidate who she thought was the future of the party. when obama comes to washington he seeks are counted because he's got a superstar in an unusual way for a freshman senator because of his speech at the democratic convention 2004. they have a blog where she sees

them as a potential mentor and he sees her as a potential mentor. there's a little detail in the book how he gave her a picture of his daughters and his wife, and she kept it on her senate office, despite until the day she the senate. obviously, a huge amount of conflict and bitterness that enfolded when they ended up head to head in the democratic nomination, but in the end after all of her bitterness over how the race turned out and all of her anger, which is document in the book in a lot of vivid detail, the extraordinary series of events that lead her to eventually accept the job of secretary of state, we have at the very end of the book, they have this rather incredible coming together in his late-night phone call after his offered her the job, she has turned down. she decides she doesn't want to jot. everyone in her life is like to get her to take the job. her husband thinks it is great for. rahm emanuel, joe biden, all lobbying. she calls obama to tell him that

she's not going to take the job and they have this incredible late-night phone call where the two of them, where she kind of tells him why she doesn't want the job. he excels at those are all good reason for him to not want the job. she's burdened with their debt, titan was to go home. she thinks her husband will be a difficult distraction if she takes the job that he's as i understand all that but i need you to do the job. the economic crisis will be huge. it will consume a lot of my first term. i need some in the state department who is calm, competent and understand for incompetent whose hand i don't have to alter your country need you and i need you to be a success as president. after everything that's happened between them in this kind of epic arc of the relationship, it's an extraordinary moment because when the moment when she kind of admits her husband can be a problem, something she's never done before throughout the campaign, and every time bill clinton has been anything that's been said publicly detrimental to her she defense in which even her closest ally she never says, she never takes any other site

and she totally loyal to her husband. now she's having not disloyal but admitted to obama that she sees in her husband. obama who is like the most self-contained self-possessed person who does not express that he needs anyone, he's the kind of guy who is very good, he turned to her and admits that he needs for her to be a success to its in that moment that they have this bond, the first heat of the relationship of trust when they feel like they can work together. he tells her he wants her to sleep on and not say no. she wakes up the next one and decide she's going to take the job. i think the caller is right. her performance this year has as success he has been missing all of the things that are best about hillary clinton. she is then acting and a clubby viable advisor to them. she has worked hard. and by all indications from mark's reporting and my reporting, their relationship is as solid as any relationship of any cabinet secretary to the

president. they are on extra in good terms but i think it speaks well of her, her patriotism, devotion to the country and ability to put past bitterness aside for a higher calling. >> frankie on our line for democrats. >> caller: i have a very simple question i would like to ask the two gentlemen, what kind of impact do you think this will have on people running against people who want to work for them, when it seems like if you write a book like this, i don't -- i don't understand why these people talk to you and say some of the things they say about the candidates. and i think it would be hard to get anybody to work for you or get -- so hard for the candidate. they have to be so careful what they should say and do in private, and just the question, if i could ask what kind of an impact you think the book will have? thank you. >> before you answer that,

howard kurtz wrote yesterday and those perhaps president obama's character is an use a consistent but the portrait may also reflect the fact that aidsn winning campaign had little dirt to dish and even less incentive since many of them are now running the country. just want to add that to her comment spend there's a lot there. let me try to address at least part of the. as john said earlier in him as any is we're doing to many interviews and long interviews we did for the book we were dealing not with strange. we were dealing with people who had very positive strong working relationship over decades. and so in the process we explain to them in great detail what we're doing. we explain the kind of book it was, the terms of which we were speaking. and, you know, history is important. one of the things we learned, much times to our panic, was that time passes people's memory gets worse. there's an oral history here that if we hadn't stepped in and

done these entities when we did them, i think a lot of it would have been loss. people have said kurtz's piece and others talk about the notion that we relied on people with axes to grind that i have to tell you, john mayfield today, i can remember more than five interviews at most in which the people we were interviewing clearly were trying to spin the story arc learned trying to reflect the point of you. they were in almost every instance very poorly cooperative with us and telling the story because they knew we were writing what we hoped would be considered a series history of an important moment in american history. that process yielded a lot of stories that we are able to ,-comcome over time and taking our time, merge together. there's not a single political controversial storyline in the book on which we based on people exclusively with people who could have be said to have an ax to grind. we always went to supporters, people more sympathetic to a candidate or his spouse and said this is what we've been told by

others, what do you think? and they were almost no instances where the merging of those accounts from quote unquote two sides require judgment on our part. the stories wind up. >> i would add one thing i'm the quota something like perhaps unusual consistency twin prop obama's public image and the private reality. i think that's too. i think one of the things in the book demonstrates its that, in some cases there's a wide divergence between public image and private reality. the story of john edwards and elizabeth edwards is the most dramatic example in the book with the gap between what the public saw and what they want the public to see and how to add were in private is yawning. is a catholic kind of gap. obama's, the gap between his public image and private reality is of all the major candidates was the narrowest. i think it's part of the reason why he turned out to be such a strong candidate, part of the reason he wanted they spent very little time in the obama campaign having to manage the

problem of here's what we're trying to go public but here's what's going on. for all these other campaigns do and, you know, amount of time and effort that was devoted by the staff to try and kind of bridge that gap, massage the differences. the obama campaign was able to focus to a larger extent on getting done what he needed to get them because there was not that as large a gap. with that said we show when i talked before about the race example, we shall plenty of examples where the obama public image was not was going on behind the scenes. we lay that there. i do think it is important and important reason why he was success and his campaign, get to his rivals because the gap was narrower. >> if i could you say, another thing that's been said about the book is we don't have very much about barack obama are we don't show anything about barack obama that is less flattering. i would urge people to read a book. there's a number of moments in a campaign with a campaign behind the scene was in crisis, whatever questions about whether the strategy was working.

and 11, and since she's a barack obama in "game change" thing you know what, we're staying the course. we have chose a strategy. we chose a tactic to back it up if this is the right thing. there's another instance where in the book where he decides he's not getting enough advice from a broader circle of people. one of the things we reported in the book is this group of three men, david axe right, robert gibbs at david plouffe, the campaign manager, chief strategist and spokesmen have almost a stable hold on the advise that gives to barack obama. very influential. this was a constant tension in campaign what other people including michelle obama would occasionally say when things are going badly, you know what? there needs to be a broader circle of advisers. it is seen there in the process around the time when it is clear barack obama will probably beat hillary clinton but is what is going to limp into the general election where he makes the decision to change course, where he expands his request tries a nice conference call with advisers that fun but not one of the freezes by a new done who

goes on to become communications act. so that is a deeper portrait of barack obama here. it is not all flattering. people who said it is a much about barack obama or the stuff about barack obama is written by our sources who are the winners and therefore is not a false portrait as a. >> can you talk about early on when he decides to bring a needed done into the fold while considering a run. and a strategy that she takes up by running his fund and the speeches that he is getting around the country, helping raise money for other candidates? the strategy for e-mail addresses. >> this is in the early 2006, late 2005. that barack obama had a pact, called hopefund. and obama invite interviewed and in eventually hired tranforty one that packs. he was an extraordinary unusual

can in this respect it even before obama was elected to national office, we used to a candidate for senate in 2000 where he was able to raise money for other democratic senators. he was out doing fund raising event for people like tom daschle who were sitting senators between mealy upon arriving in washington obama was this unprecedented fund-raising draw. apart from hillary clinton. he could go around the country to read state and purple states, obviously to put state and turn out huge crowds. and i think mark and i at the time of war following this, we knew that obama was trying to run and we knew he was raising money. i don't think a week report the book we had a clear set. we started talking to people like claire mccaskill who tells the stories about obama coming to campaign tour in 2006. he would come to saint louis to have to get an overflow room because not only do they have had a fundraiser for the 2000 or 3000 people who would pay a lot of money, but also have to get a

separate report 10,000 or 15,000 people because everybody wanted to see this guy. his fund-raising ability was at the core of what as we talk about how the democratic establishment was secretly behind him, that was part, they could see his political appeal. anita dunn in some sense along with david plouffe was maximizing, initiating a similar strategy for patrick in massachusetts if they started think about how this could be capitalized on to build what became the grassroots army. when people would come to obama events they would ask her e-mail address and that was the beginning of building a database for hopefund that became the core database tha data to go ino this massive online army that obama exploited in the 2008 campaign and also became the core of what became their massive fundraising machine. as we all know the use the internet in a totally novel way in 2008 to build his fund-raising machine that is unprecedented in history of american politics. anita dunn and the decisions

were made in hopefund were the seeds of that development, which made obama credible and gave him a huge advantage going forward against both hillary clinton and john mccain smacked marie on the republican line. >> caller: you know, i get a kick out of the last time they passed their uploads, they kind of call them dumb as they see a threat and they're all for women's rights and tell sarah palin came along and was attracted. but even the left, like joy behar, bill marco they have to get after her all the time. and she said more managerial experience than obama by far. she's been a governor, a mayor, she had an 80% approval rating in alaska. and, you know, if einstein came back and met as republican, they would call him dumb. that's how they try to belittle their opponents. and it is really quite funny when you come right down to the. europe does this without. welcome to europe is made up of

different countries with their own culture. and switzerland is in europe and not part of the e.u. >> we believe there. let me take one thing that she said about sarah palin and your coverage of the sarah palin in his book. she's probably talking to a last. sarah palin from your reporting was consumed with how she was being perceived in alaska during this election. >> she was. one of the challenges for us in writing about sarah palin was, yeah, she had never been much involved in national politics as the governor of alaska. very few people in national political or media life had dealings with sarah palin. so it's unusable as know that its people in washington know people in journalism circles. sarah palin was new and so part of the challenge was to talk to national operatives on the mccain campaign who were really literally today amongst the only people we know had exposure to see what she liked it when she's not on tv or giving a speech.

they met with sarah palin. they had never met her that she was a stranger to them and asked by john mccain to talk to her in arizona before he meets with her and to talk to about what the jobs going to be like if they offered a position. one of the things in that meeting, late at night on the eve of john mccain election, was the importance of her understand even though she would would remain at a sitting governor of alaska she need to understand the focus now need to be on the national campaign. that she is basically now an appendage of the campaign, that she would probably not get back to alaska invest in some sort of natural disaster and she needed to be focused not on her home state, but on the national ticket. and the sprint to the election next. from the point of view of the senior mccain statute not live up to that. she and her husband were consumed with what was an 80% approval rate in alaska cut into something less than that. they were consumed when typing would go back to alaska and

second campaign in the lower 40. youth in absence of mccain paid and yard signs in alaska. no television advertising because alaska with palin on the ticket would secure for mccain. based in an inordinate amount of time complaining to the campaign staff that not enough was being done in alaska. sarah palin had a very good relationship with the local media in alaska. from the palin's point of view as we write in both the local media kind of turned on her. she was not being allowed to talk to those local reporters like a lot of governors. she would give up her phone number or mobile phone number to local reporters who covered her, talk to them on a bigger base. all of that are most of the and wind should put on a national ticket. from the mccain point of view there was no time for the. she had said she understood that before she put on the ticket. that was one of many causes of tension between the payment and a national campaign staff spent david on independent line. >> caller: good morning.

my political affiliation in florida, i am on my election harkin i am identified as no party affiliation because independent is classified as a party. here's some way i vote over the years. i always come away politician reaches their 12 year, that's the maximum for me and i will not vote for him. the other thing i will not vote for politicians than moving to nutritious. two examples, clinton into new york. and being in florida, tom. >> the 30th of you graduate in fort myers high school he moved back into the district to run for his father's office and man voters in southwest florida. they bother voting for his father and they were very upset when they realize after the declaration that they had voted for his son. document evidence. i was upset being a disabled veteran with george dubya bush didn't produce --

>> let me jump in here because we're running out of time with these authors. what's your question or comment? , i was leading into my question. this is a question i recently start asking my friends about voter fraud. here's my question. which of the three largest cities in the u.s. have a reputation, whether it is, for having corrupt election? >> i'm not sure others can answer that. do i do what you want to take a stab at that? >> never be run taking his cities in louisiana and maybe new jersey. >> let me get this criticism from howard kurtz's column yesterday that he's a deep background need means that you can describe someone's thinking or reconstruct verbatim dialogue when you're writing about events and involving that person. as an author who is used that technique i don't believe it and tells you to directly quote what someone said to you. which effectively puts it on the record, and several other journalists have said they agree as well. he is referring to the quote

that came out at first about what harry reid said in private about barack obama. john heilemann, why did you take that's because i was a first of all in our office that we refer to the notion that we conducted our if you on deep background, and then we say in a shorthand way what that meant, which was as basically howard writes in in the peace. the authors note is not however complete in the sense that it doesn't have a thorough description of all of the conversation we had with our sources, which we had every single source that we talk too. we would talk in great detail about how the interview we are about to conduct would be used in the book and we would go through like a speech up, almost like a speech. there was no scope at the midas will have been where we would lead into this is that enviable go, this is what we can use, this is what catches. i can say that there is no case in which the way that we expand what we're going to do. and in the we didn't live up to that agreement.

it is i think it's important that people understand that the background as many of people have written is not a concept that his actions of every journalist in some sense has rules of the road that the rules of the road that we live that work rules of the that we stuck to in every instant. >> you don't think there is concrete, on the record, off the record? >> there isn't. you can read nuance describe different things that just emphasize the point i made. a couple poised on a. we didn't violate the agreement with anybody we may. and unlike a lot of exchanges in washington and in journalism generally, between a reporter and sources, where their terms are not defined but there is and there is commonality come on whether the current terms are on-the-fly. with meticulous and careful in everything we had, every interview we did, went to the project in terms of what we're discussing, we didn't violate those terms with anybody we talk to.

>> maldonado democrat line. >> caller: i have more of a comment. and i just want to address a couple of issues because a couple of people indicate barack obama wasn't keeping with his campaign promises. but my main point is i just want to talk about the fallacy, the campaign is our taken place. hear a lot of people talk about you're concerned about the deficit spending. i don't think they realize that when while reagan took office in 1980, the deficit was 980 billion. when george bush senior left office as 405 trillion. clinton left a surplus, and when george bush, the last president left, the deficit was 10.9 trillion. when obama to corporate i think it is now 12 trillion. where does all this democratic, get plain for all his spending when it's actually republicans who have treated it all the steps it. and the democrats never addressed that issue and

continued to get demonized for the taxes and spending to and republicans use this. >> some of this is playing out what color is getting into the special election of the massachusetts about democrats being spenders and raising taxes and have the state senators, scott brown, running campaign widening his lead heading into today's election. john, i was wondering if you could compare notes from hillary clinton's campaign and the staffers that she had, and to the portrait us are in the newspapers this morning, the hillary clinton's staff from new england is helping to run martha coakley's campaign on the ground there. >> mark may know more about this than i do because i know very little. i don't know any of the details. i understand the dynamics that are going on there. certainly it is the case that republicans have historic, traditionally and successfully

in many cases. want to thank the democrats as tax spending predict have been relentless in doing that in the course of this last year. they have been very successful i think so far and having done that. and in massachusetts it seems to be playing at the point where you have a situation where martha coakley is not getting the kind of support from the democratic base to expect anything but much more important she's having a very hard time getting the number of independent voters that she would need to obsess with these questions. on the question of the stabbing i just can't answer that i don't know him. >> one of the most dramatic human moment in the book, or series of moments is the clinton's attempt to get teddy kennedy to endorse hillary four-person over barack obama. and both the frustration and anger that both clintons felt they felt they had a bond with the kennedy family. they had counted with them. president clinton regulate and private would tell people how angry angry at how frustrated he was that he does what for the

kennedy family as president, and they seem to be tripping towards obama. hillary clinton and bill clinton have incredible political support in massachusetts, one i think the satisfying moment for them on super tuesday was despite the fact that senator can have endorsed barack obama, hillary was able to win massachusetts. some of her field operatives that were not just massachusetts but also in new hampshire are now as i understand it working for the democratic nominee there. they probably should've been there a little sooner, and i think most people are watching, their involvement is being done at the last minute very quickly and may be too little, too late, if i meet use a cliché on c-span. >> steve under public republican like to go ahead than what can you talk a little bit about mitt romney, his public image and private performance and also his relationship with both john mccain and mike huckabee. thanks. >> the book, we spend for a variety of reasons we did not spend nearly as much some other public and raise because it lacked a lot of the drama of the

democratic race. however, there is some interesting mature. to the caller specific question, i think there is one very striking example of the disparity between public image and private reality indicates it wrong of wrong me which is romney's public image if anything was defined as a competent kind of ceo character. he was an arch capital. in addition to being the governor of massachusetts but this notion that is a, he could run the government as if it were a boardroom. >> decisive. >> correct. and, in fact, what you see throughout our coverage in the book of romney is that his staff wisconsin lee foster with the fact that he was in fact totally indecisive that he could not decide of things as elemental as picking a campaign slogan. this discussion went on for months that they never came up with a campaign slogan because romney was seeking more advice for the consultants i didn't dominate him i