still talking and writing about the 2008 campaign and now your book turned into an hbo film? >> well, i think several reasons. the main one being it was, as we say in the subtitle of the book, the race of a lifetime. you had lots of bigger than life candidates and candidates' spouses competing for a race, open seat in the white house with the kind of plot twists and turns if you brought to hollywood as fiction, they would throw you out and say this is too implausible. i could list them off. the selection of sarah palin. the role of a former president as a campaign spouse in bill clinton. the story of john mccain's collapse and then comeback. and john and elizabeth edwards and their extraordinary role only revealed far after the fact about what was going on with them in their lives as he was running for president and making a strong play to be the democrat democratic nominee. >> and john heilemann, your take on this new hbo film people will be talking about the race four years ago. >> well, we were then just

thrilled to work with hbo on this. they have an incredibly high standard that they bring to all the work they do, whether that's episodic or movies they make. mark and i were honored and gratified when they bought the option to do the book. we knew there was going to have to be some choices made. it's a big book, 500 pages, a big campaign. if you didn't want to sit down and do a miniseries, you were going to have to pick a story line. jay roach, the director of this movie, the guy who also directed the emmy award winning "recount," for hbc, they were attracted to the palin story. it's an incredible american story about this woman who was for most of her political career a small town mayor and only governor for 18 months before she was snatched out of obscurity and put on the republican ticket in the most pressure filled environment with the brightest spotlight you can imagine. what that was like for her at the human level. what the kipd of decisions

politically were that went into making that choice and what the ramifications were. jay and danny were really attracted to that story and thought you could say a lot about both what it's like to be a politician in this celebrity culture we live in and also kind of what the mechanics are of how these things go down in the back rooms. that's stuff mark and i were really attracted to. when they were seizing on that story as the story to do from the book, we said, yeah, that's great. they've done an incredible job doing it. the performances in the movie as everyone's going to see are spectacular. we couldn't be happier with how all things come out. >> we're going to dig into the substance of the book. mark halperin let me ask you how the idea for the book came about before the 2008 campaign. when the two of you decided to collaborate. and how you have applied maybe some of the lessons from 2008 to your current work in the 2012 campaign. >> well, we were coming back from annapolis where senator mccain was doing an event on his

biography tour. this was a pretty good idea about what he should do with his time after he won the nomination in a de facto way, mike huckabee and mitt romney getting out. hillary clinton and barack obama were still very much contending in the spring of 2008 for the democratic nomination. it was a great idea to go on this biography tour to visit all the places he'd been, lived in the united states and try to associate some sort of theme with him. but the execution was pretty bad for most of it. including the event in annapolis where he spoke at the naval academy at the football stadium, an incredibly windy day. i won't go into the details. it wasn't the best executed event i've ever seen. we parked, i was doing something with c-span that day. we parked in front of c-span. your loyal viewers will be delighted to hear the game change was born right there on north capitol street. right? it's north capitol street. >> it is. >> in front of c-span as we sat and talked. what we said to ourselves initially was not about a book. it was, in fact, about a movie.

we said if you look at the characters here and you look at how sinmatic this whole thing has been, this was in the spring well before sarah palin, well before the financial crisis, there's just so much here. someone should make a movie about it. we talked about various ways of trying to do the story of the campaign. every political reporter who covers these presidential campaigns, whether it's a great one or less good one, says to themselves maybe i could get a book contract out of this. it's very hard, though, to public political books. we talked about how could we successfully write and public a political book in the climate where there's so much news. what we said to ourselves was there's so much about the campaign that we don't know. we were covering it every day. reading all of our colleagues' work. we didn't know the answers to some basic questions. what role did bill clinton play in hillary clinton's campaign? how did barack obama really decide he could run for president and make a credible effort to beat hillary clinton? lots of questions like that we didn't know the answers to. we said what if we went back and

almost as archaeologists tried to figure out what had actually happened? before too long we'd taken that original conversation, shaped it a little bit. but what we ended up writing was very close to the idea we had on that day originally and we're basically doing the same thing for the next cycle, for this cycle. there's no republican to tamper with a formula readers seem to like and tell the story of a campaign people are focused on minutely this time as they were last time. again, to try to go back and tell the story through the eyes of the people involved in a way that maybe is impossible to do in daily, weekly or monthly journalism. >> what we have done is gone back through your book and selected a couple of quotes and some accompanying moments that maybe best reflect what happened during that process of the campaign. let's begin with the announcement that then senator barack obama, leading up to his announcement, you write that colin powell has his questions for senator obama, but the main one was, why now?

i think i might have been what the country needs today, the senator responded. i think it might be my time. >> for the past six years, we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter. we've been told the anxiety americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion. we've been told climate change is a hoax. we've been told the tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, strategy and foresight. when all else fails, when katrina happens or the death toll in iraq mounts, we've been told our crises are somebody else's fault. we're distracted from our real failures and told to blame the other party or gay people or immigrants. and as people have looked away in disillusionment and frustration, we know what's filled the void. the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who've turned our government into a game only

they can afford to play. they write the checks and you get stuck with the bill. they get the access while you get to write a letter. they think they own this government, but we're here today to take itk. the time for that kind of politics is over. it is through. it's time to turn the page right here and right now. >> john heilemann, as you indicated in the book, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that despite his success in boston in 2004 that barack obama would r he was inclined i think not to run in 2008. certainly his wife michelle was very much against the idea at first. the thing that you read there, steve, from his conversati with colin powell, that theme, the notion that this could be his time to run, and that there is a time for a candidate, a

right time, was something that was really influential to barack obama. he was hearing it from a lot of people. you know, the conventional thinking about running for president would be, look, you've only been in the senate for a couple of years. you don't have enough of a resume. you haven't done enough. you need to wait your turn, wait around, get more experience and so on. what obama kept hearing from senior democrats all throughout the senate and others was that that actually in the new era might not be true. that old rule might need to be thrown away. and that if he stuck around the senate for a long time, he's be labored and weighed down with all the votes that he took and all the positions he'd had to take on controversial matters. that he was a fresh face. that the country was sick of the clintons and sick of the bushes and wanted to see something new. and that for that reason, coming out of that incredible star making turn in boston, and coming out of the 2006 election cycle where he had raised just an incredible amount of money and been a superstar in the fundraising circuit for democrats all across the country, that he had the magic

thing. he had the lightning in a bottle. and that it would be a foolish mistake for him not to recognize that so much of success in presidential politics is timing. it was in the end more than anything, there were a lot of factors that went into his thinking, but that notion that if he didn't go in 2008 he might never get another better opportunity, that was more influential than almost anything else in his ultimate decision to get in. >> in the spring and fall barack obama was lagging in many of the polls. many expecting hillary clinton was at that point the clear front-runner according to surveys in a couple of key states including new hampshire and iowa. then there was this moment, mark halperin, that you outline in the book. the plan was now set. the following month. senator obama would be appearing with all of the other candidates in des moines, iowa. that would be the perfect place to unfurl the new strategy in r

earnest. >> we have a chance to bring the country together in a new majority, to finally tackle problems that george bush made far worse but that had festered long before george bush ever took office. problems that we've talked about year after year after year after year. and that is why the same old washington textbook campaigns just won't do in this election. [ cheers and applause ] that's why -- that's why not answering questions, because we're afraid our answers won't be popular, just won't do. that's why -- that's why telling the american people what we think they want to hear, instead of telling the american people what they need to hear just won't do.

triangulating and poll-driven positions because we're worried about what mitt or rudy might say about us just won't do. if we are really serious about winning this election, democrats, then we can't live in fear of losing it. this party, the party of jefferson and jackson, of roosevelt and kennedy, has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the american people when we led not by polls, but by principle. not by calculation, but by conviction. when we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose, a higher purpose.

and i run for the presidency of the united states of america because that is the party that america needs us to be right now. >> from november of 2007, and mark halperin, as you write at great length, this was a turning point for this democratic race. why? >> well, because up until that point, although barack obama had got into the race in february with a lot of excitement around his candidacy, he had not been that great of candidate. he'd not shown he could break away from the pack, not just hillary clinton but john edwards making a strong play in iowa. in 2008 it was a real showcase and opportunity for a candidate to shine. hillary clinton's speech that night was pretty good, i thought. you saw in that clip and as we write in the book, even some clinton supporters who were at that dinner, barack obama's

speech was a lot better. it really reframed the race and introduced in the most prominent way to date this theme, mostly implicit that the clinton years had flaws in them that democrats shouldn't want to go back to. and that the same old washington operation personified for a lot of even democrats by the clinton years was something the country didn't want and shouldn't turn to. >> i'm not sure if you can reveal sources now that the book is out, but mark halperin, how did you go about getting the inside story, for example, on that speech and how barack obama rehearsed and prepared for it? >> by talking to the people involved with -- and familiar with what happened. we don't reveal the sources now. as we did throughout the book, we were very meticulous about talking to people involved in a given situation, everyone involved almost in every case and certainly wherever possible. and made sure we had documentation, hand-written notes, et cetera, to paint the

picture. both his preparation for the speech and how hillary clinton approached her speech at the dinner are pretty interesting tale and a good microcosm to how the campaigns operated, how the candidates operated in dealing with the titanic clash between them. >> let me go to the new hampshire primary, yet another turning point in the race in 2008, a race hillary clinton won narrowly. in the book, john heilemann, you write when it was over hillary marched down a hallway backstage with her husband and chelsea at her side. she looked like a quarterback who had just completed a last second hail mary pass in overtime. >> i come tonight with a very, very full heart. and i want -- i want especially to thank new hampshire. over the last week, i listened to you. and in the process, i found my own voice. [ cheers and applause ]

i felt like we all spoke from our hearts, and i'm so gratified that you responded. now, together, let's give america the kind of comeback that new hampshire has just given me. >> john heilemann, just a little bit of a narrative on that day, that moment with hillary clinton's win, what you were sensing in new hampshire leading up to her victory and how it also became so important to the obama campaign in 2008. >> you remember, steve, after obama had won in iowa, everyone in the national press and really on both campaigns, except for hillary clinton and her husband, they looked at new hampshire as the day barack obama was going

to seal the democratic nomination. he was going to win new hampshire on the basis of his momentum. independent voters could vote there. that was seen as a big strength for him. he had the wind at his back. the polling showed going into new hampshire that it should have been an easy win for obama. but he decided to campaign in a very different way there than he had in iowa. he got kind of disconnected from human beings on the ground and the voters. she got down closer to the voters. you remember those couple of moments, one in the debate when barack obama made the kind of icy cold comment about how she was likable enough. and then her incredible moment in the diner a couple of days later when she broke down slightly and teared up and showed a side of herself that a lot of democratic voters had been longing to see. and that they hadn't seen for most of the past year. this very human, very approachable side. one of the things we talk about in the book is how the obama campaign, many people, including hillary herself, who thought it was kind of in the immediate moment thought that was kind of

a disaster that she had had an ed muskie moment where she had shown weakness and that that would be the end of her campaign in new hampshire. the obama campaign looked at that and thought, this is a problem. that's the humanity we've not seen in hillary clinton in the last year. they saw it immediately as something that could change the momentum dramatically, and that's what happened. even leading up to the very day of the primary vote, most reporters on the ground still thought that barack obama was going to win that primary. the people around barack obama thought he was going to win the primary. even the people around hillary clinton thought that. the only exceptions to that rule really were bill clinton and hillary clinton who as they were campaigning over the course of those last 72 hours, they felt like they could feel something shifting in the electorate. bill clinton new politics in the new hampshire better than any place on the planet. everywhere they went he felt the tide turning. they were the only ones who weren't completely surprised

when she won that victory. she bounced out of new hampshire with one of the most remarkable comebacks anybody has seen in presidential politics. people at that point -- it would change shortly but people thought hillary clinton is on her way to restoring, being able to put back together her rightful place as the front-runner. as you know, things got a lot more complicated after that. >> mark halperin, maybe with mitt romney's february win in michigan a parallel to what barack obama faced two months after hillary clinton winning the new hampshire primary, essentially clinching the nomination. having dodged bullet after bullet, mccain clinched his party's nomination march 4th, including one of the greatest political comebacks in modern american history. here is my question with a direct relation to the hbo movie which indicates it was essentially a last-minute decision selecting sarah palin. why such a lag between clinching the nomination in march and determining the nominee late in the summer? >> well, steve, that's an excellent question. it does go to the heart of the selection of sarah palin.

senator mccain had been around presidential politics. he enjoyed, i think, kind of the opportunity as the de facto nominee to go through the rituals that the party nominee gets to go through. one of which is hiring someone or retaining someone, in this case a very respected washington lawyer, to go through and begin a process of vetting the background of potential candidates. given that it was a mccain operation, which tended to have relatively loose lips and a fair amount of leaking, this process was kept relatively confidential in realtime. the day we decided -- came up with the idea for "game change" initially was the day senator mccain besides doing the event in annapolis i mentioned went on imus's program and talked about the vetting program and the lawyer helping him when he wasn't supposed to. that was one of the last times there was a public window into what was going on. they looked into the background

in a normal way of a lot of candidates. some were mentioned in the clip you showed at the top. senator lieberman, a close friend of senator mccain's was at the top of senator mccain's wish list for a lot of the process. but after they did the kind of standard weeks long background checks on a number of candidates and considered more surface way any number of others, they let themselves, you know, you could argue inexcuse bli, they left themselves with actually no one they thought would be a good pick. no one they could get through in a way they thought would be a net plus for them. as we write in the book, there was serious consideration for senator lieberman. the politics of a running mate that was al gore's running mate eight years before and liberal on most issues was something they really grappled with. and in the end they thought was not going to be politically

effective and could be a real political problem. then they turned with just a week to go -- again, as you point out, in effect squandered many months not vetting someone who in the end they wanted to pick, with a week to go they not only reached out to sarah palin but began from a standing part and not the normal due diligence you would do in such a case to look at sarah palin's background and decide in senator mccain's case to pick her, even though, as he knew, there were a lot of risks involved. >> reporting insights of mark halperin and john heilemann. co-authors of "game change." inside the book you write convinced he would be the nominee, barack obama wanted to start dealing with the issues he was destined to confront in the general election, which race was one. reverend wright sped up the timetable for the speech. >> i've already condemned in unequivocal terms the statements of reverend wright that have caused such controversy, and in some cases pain. for some, nagging questions remain. did i know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of american domestic and foreign policy? of course. did i ever hear him make remarks

that could be considered controversial while i sat in the church? yes. did i strongly disagree with many of his political views? absolutely. just as i'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagree. but the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. they weren't simply a religious leader's efforts to speak out against perceived injustice. instead they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country. a view that sees white racism as endemmic, and that elevates what is wrong with america above all that we know is right with america. a view that sees the conflicts in the middle east as rooted primary in the actions of stalwart allies like israel instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical islam.

as such, reverend wright's comments were not only wrong, but divisive. divisive at a time when we need unity. racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems. >> john heilemann, that was another defining moment in the democratic race. as you indicated in the book this was a speech barack obama had wanted to give for a very long time. >> it was. i mean, he was really -- as he got closer and closer to being the party's nominee and felt like he was on track to get that, he knew that the question of his race, being the first african-american nominee in the party's history, it was going to be something he would have to deal with. he wanted to give a speech. he's a high-minded guy. he'd been grappling with issues of race and identity for a long time. i think he felt it was a teachable moment. the question was when the moment would come. reverend wright's explosion onto

p political scene was a moral peril for him. they felt in the obama campaign because of the delegate math he was destined to be the nominee. but hillary clinton was staging big comebacks. she was winning the ohio primary. she was winning the texas primary. there were a lot of states in the future that hillary clinton was going to be very strong in. and there were still a lot of superdelegates that hadn't decided what to do. there was a chance if there was some controversy that erupted that disqualified obama as a democratic nominee, that was the only thing that could knock him off from ultimately getting the big prize. reverend wright was that kind of thing. and when he appeared on the scene saying the incendiary things he said, obama immediately moved and said, look, i've wanted to give this speech for a while. this is the time to do it. he gave that speech you played the clip from, was roundly applauded for it across the political spectrum. then, of course, reverend wright came back on the scene again shortly thereafter and said even more disquieting things. that was when obama in doing something he didn't want to do,

something he hadn't done in the initial race speech, which was to really sever ties completely with reverend wright. really throw him under the bus. he had not wanted to do that because of his close relationship with him personally. he finally felt like he had to do it. there's a moment in the book, very powerful. he's standing before the press conference where he goes out and does that, cuts reverend wright loose, where he's standing there alone looking into the mirror. robert gibbs, his press secretary, comes in. obama says is this how america sees me? they think i'm like reverend wright? they think i'm an angry black man? he understood not only that he felt it was the wrong perception, but what a dangerously political perception that would be. he knew, even though it was painful personally he had to sever ties completely with reverend wright so he could get past this and be a viable nominee and candidate in the fall. >> let me pick up from that point, mark phalperin. certainly the personalities and

politics differ in 2008. one of the similarities we don't know when this republican primary will end, people referring to the length of the primary in 2008 and said, in essence, it didn't really hurt barack obama. can you touch on that point? >> well, as we write in the book, and as the country saw, there was an epic nature of the battle and the big personalities that made it exciting. and i think what is clear is that both candidates handled it really well. particularly barack obama used individual election nights and elongated process in a mechanical way to build an organization in individual states and around the country to become better as a candidate and to hone a message. for the general election. i think if you look at the reception that hillary clinton got, by the end she was elevated as well. she's gone -- you know, still to this day the most respected woman in the country in part, i think, because of the toughness

she showed and the skill she showed in that campaign. in this presidential election what is potentially an elongated republican contest, i think you don't find all those dynamics. at least not yet. i don't think you've seen much improvement in the candidates. in some ways they have gotten worse and left a trail of errors. i don't think they have been nearly as effective, including mitt romney, in laying groundwork for a general election in terms of message, in terms of organization as barack obama and even hillary clinton was four years ago. and the final thing i'll say, these candidates in the race now, they are -- they've created kind of factions within the party. you don't find romney supporters who are really enthusiastic about rick santorum. in some cases you don't find a lot of romney supporters who are enthusiastic about mitt romney. but that's a separate issue. in the case of hillary clinton and barack obama, although it was very contentious and the passions were high amongst their supporters and candidates themselves, once it became clear

barack obama was going to be the nominee, people got onboard for that largely. the party was united and energized to win the white house. i toent see that dynamic yet in the republican race. that could change. for the most part the bitterness that exists between the candidates extends to a lot of their supporters and leaves them potentially in a much less strong position than barack obama was when he emerged from that very elongated battle. >> if we could for a moment let's take you and our viewers back to spring of 2008, may and june. you write in the book that the perception that she, hillary clinton, had behaved badly had taken hold in the media and threatened to eclipse everything that she had accomplished. she had to get behind barack obama quickly and graciously, but to do it in a way that served her interests and her image. >> as we gather here today in this historic, magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this earth is orbiting overhead. if we can blast 50 women into

space, we will someday launch a woman into the white house. [ cheers and applause ] and although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it. [ cheers and applause ] and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. >> john heilemann, that was a quote that obviously hillary clinton made famous but something sarah palin also used in her 2008 acceptance speech. >> yeah, it was a very powerful image. hillary clinton at that moment after she decided to stop, after the final primaries, she had to make a decision.