>> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community. experienced, respected and tested. also by hilco partners, texas government affairs consultancy, and its global healthcare consulting business unit, hilco health. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you. >> i'm evan smith. they're veteran political reporters who have mastered the art of the scoop-filed presidential campaign. their best telling tome game change, their follow up on the 2012 race, "double down" is now

in stores. they're john heilemann and mark halperin, this is overheard. >> i guess we can't fire them now. >> i guess we can't fire him now. it would be nice that i win an emmy. being on the supreme court was an improbable dream. it's hard work and it's controversial. >> it's journal list who provide that. >> window rolls down and a guy says, hey, he goes till 11:00. [laughter]. >> mark, john, welcome. >> great to be here. >> nice to jew back. congratulation -- nice to have you back. congratulations. no. 3 on the hard seller best debut, no. 1 ebook in america. >> victory. great success. >> thank you. >> this is a fantastic book in which we learn so much more than we thought we knew at the time, just like the last one. something i guess we did know at

the time, but is reinforced as i read the book, john, is this is an election between two flawed candidates. i guess every election to some degree is an election between two flawed candidates but it really seemed in this case that either of these guys could have lost this race. >> president obama's lead was small but turrable throughout. governor romney is a fascinating character that comes through in this book. really, the picture of romney so much at odds with what so many people, especially democrats and especially in the white house thought of romney. he's really am biff lonsen core -- ambivalence incarnate throughout the book. 47%, when he's challenged, he doesn't have the will of the resolve and the energy to go out and confront those challenges, he's almost passive about it when he's hit in these moments

when he really should be marshaling all of his forces. it's kind of an amazing pictures in some way because it's not at all what most people thought. >> the confidence he may lack in himself is met by the confidence others lack in him all throughout his nominations, even when it seems inevitable, there's still an effort by some people to go find somebody else. they think, whether it's donors or political professionals, he may not really be up to the task. >> what's interesting to us, the group that was looking for someone else for the most part would be people that would be charter members of the mitt romney fan club. >> right. >> he did serve only one term as governor of massachusetts. based on his resume and his bearing you would think that other elite rich people would be all for him. we write about a group of millions airs and billionaires try to get chris christie in the running.

mitt romney is in a war with rick santorum. we're either going to get rick santorum as their nominee or a very weak mitt romney and think think can we get someone else in. that group included hailey barber, it included john boehner, the speaker of the house, and it included paul ryan, who just a few months later would become mitt romney's running mate. >> right. >> these overtures, john, that mark is referring to, we heard a little bit about that out in the gen pop, the christy approach to these folks was markable because as much as we thought chris christie kind of looked at the race, you spend a lot of time referring to as hamlet of drum swacket. hi's watching up to the -- he's walking up to the edge of being mario plomo in this race,

ultimately decides not to run. but chris christie was looking at this fairly late into it. >> much more closer than anybody thought and much more closer than he ever admitted until the day he announced he wasn't going to do it. up until that moment, he kept saying nothing's changed, nothing's changed, in fact, in private, he's on the phone with george w. bush, he's on the phone with barbara bush, he's meeting with donors, the founder of home depot, he's meeting at his house with carl row to go through the steps of what it would take. he's doing a lot of stuff, going publicly to the reagan library and getting speech therapy, he's doing a lot of reconfor a guy that says he's not at all getting in the race. and then he says he's going to decide this weekend. and then at the end of the weekend, he still hasn't made up his mind. he still needs one more day with his mind to tell him, maybe this could work and his gut that tells him, i'm not sure i'm ready for this. >> the fact that he's considering it is born of angst,

my favorite thing of the entire book as i've shared with you when governor chris christie decides not to run, he brings the romneys to his house to tell them he's giving them his prized endorsement in the race. governor chris christie says i do know how big this is. and i thought this guy, i hope this guy runs, to see this guy and rick perry, for instance, in a race together knocking heads would be something else. >> well, part of what the timing of governor chris christie intense consideration of this was around the time governor perry got in. he didn't think much of governor perry and he thought romney would probably be the nominee but the fact that governor perry was being t a see really got under his skin. he dhowght if this -- thought if this is going to be the big dog

in this race, maybe i should run. if a group of people, not very big, but, you know, recognizable who think some day i'm going to run for president, and the question they always face is, is this my time? can i wait four more years. in this case, chris christie decides he could wait four more years. >> : i think john is correct, when you get into the race at that point, president obama is the presumptive favorite. the state of the economy, the unemployment rate, and so many other things coming out of the debt ceiling debacle of 2011. he was the beatable incumbent, right? >> absolutely beatable. and if you look at what the president faced in term of the wrong track people thinking of the country, he's on the wrong track, the unemployment rate, things got a little bit better, the perceptions and the statistics got a little bit better towards the economy towards the end. but to the end of 2012, i think it's pretty clear that a

stronger candidate would have at least made it a highly competitive race, maybe taking traditional states, virginia. >> had you made this a campaign litigated about that as opposed to another subject. john, we're used to the president's signature phrase, a phrase that's been associated with him, "i got this." the president's cool under fire. there were many moments, not just that first debate in denver , where the president didn't seem to have very much of anything as a campaigner, we were used to the 2008 obama. the 2012 obama was much less confident. >> i think that's true. there were two big moments, putting aside the debates you talked a minute ago when he was at his most vulnerable, you know, the president's going through this series of meetings with his senior advisers, and they really are kind of amazing. we detailed them meeting by

meeting because they are in a lot of ways one person in the meeting describes them where the president is 23409 just laying out strategies and tactics, going through, remakes this long list of regrets in office, this is a guy who's searching, he's never really suffered anything like the kind of setbacks. he's ll trying to figure out, what -- really trying to figure out, what have i done, very uncertain of his footing. and at that time, the rest of the campaign, even when they're kind of an nye -- ahnilling on negative adds. >> even one of those things, very frustrated with that. >> the reality, john, he has been a contradiction in a lot of ways. he says i want to run a positive campaign, but he ran the most negative ads in 2008 i guess it's said of any candidate ever, and in 2012, they tried to take

out and i guess ultimately took out romney out of the realm of plausibility as he was the master of negative campaign. so for all of his talk of not being comfortable with it, it was a successful tactic. >> you're right, in 2008, he ran tons and tons of negative ads but if you think about the ratio, as much negative as there was in 2008, there was also this whole positive aspirational side. >> tear down mitt romney. a measure, mark, that you revealed in the book, in fact, when the book was first in people's hands, maybe a little bit earlier than you-all intended for it to b and there was news from the book, it was related to exactly what sort of a situation the obama campaign thought they were in that bill daily, then the chief of staff and some of the obama campaign staff apparently polled swapping out joe biden for hilary clinton as a running mate in 2012 might be a desirable idea, but it might be a necessary thing to

pull the president over the line so uncertain were they about this election. >> they couldn't assume that it would lead to a weakened republican nominee. >> yeah. >> and the president felt obligated to look at everything. bill daily, who was then the chief of staff has known joe biden for a couple of decades, they're very close, bill daily was the leader in saying we owe it to the president to look at this. they knew there would be a downside, you replace a running mate in a situation like that, it's going to appear weak and maybe panicky, but if hilary clinton will boost us in some way in the polls we've got to look at it. we say in the book in this political team it was better to be hardheaded than soft hearted. and if it ever came out, as it did when our book came out, that biden's feelings would be hurt.

people don't vote for the bottom of the ticket, and whatever popularity hilary clinton didn't boost it that much. >> just the fact that they considered it, put money on it. >> it shows you, a, how desperate they are, and, b, again, how kind of cut throat they are, take to the president the notion maybe we've got to replace your friend joe biden who you've basically already promised you're going to run with him. >> how did something like that not get out at the time? this book contain sos many things, we'll talk about the book in a few minutes. but there were so many things in this book, and this was at the top of the pyramid, to think in this world where there are no secrets, where everybody leaks, there are a thousand ways to learn something that never existed before, how does something not get out? >> well, in that case, you will recall, evan, there was a rumor about it. people will go on cable and speculate, this might be a good idea, maybe it's on the table. and the white house denied it up

and down, which of course only made us more interested in trying to figure out whether or not there was something there. it was a pretty closely guarded secret within a very small group of people. this was like only a handful of people who knew about it because it was so sensitive. >> now a comparable example on the other side would actually be the vice president shall dlib raitions on the other side. -- deliberations, you all provide an extraordinary amount of detail on the vetting of candidate, first the list of 11, then down to the list of five. this idea that it was called project gold fish after the snack crackers, and then each of the five finalists for the vice president shall nomination alongside romney all had code names. >> they were terrific, really kind of great, almost obvious wince kind of code names. paul ryan was fishconsin.

>> they had a code name for you, too. >> i'm now undone for the remainder of this interview. >> the best one was chris christie was puff fer fish -- puffer fish. >> this is after we find out earlier in the book that the nickname for chris christie is big boy. bush 43's nickname of chris christie is big boy. then they have the vice vice presidential sweep stakes and his code name is puffer fish. kind of great. you can't make this stuff up. >> vice presidential selection process is always interesting and it's another case every political reporter in the country is trying to break this. imagine if somebody would have reported in the campaign that chris christie's nickname was puffer fish. that would have been quite a

thing. >> the vetting of chris christie as a potential nominee which they did and did not get access to, i would encourage people to read about that. rob portman's decision to be velted, even though he was -- vetted even though he was concerned about the impact on his son who at the time was not known nationally to be gay only on his college campus and family. and rob portman's decision to switch his position on same-sex marriage because of his son. >> great human story. >> all on the vice presidential stuff is new stuff that you would have imagined in this world would have come out. >> we have enjoyed in both of our books focusing on vice presidential vetting. they're all examples of the same things, in both -- the same phenomenon which is that we have this incredibly sped up media ecology that we live in where the metabolism in the media

moves so fast. people focus on such a very brief amount of time, one of the things that we bring really is just time. >> and it's the same focus, right? >> we have time, sustained focus, interviews, many of them done after election day. there's nobody on the world today who's on twitter, on newspaper, on television is going back and asking people about what happened the six months ago. >> we go back, it's six months later we're still talking to people about these things, over and over and over again, it's really just a matter of as much as perspiration as it is smig anything -- anything else, just having the time. >> at the same time, people are on to you now. four year ago before game change, the kind of book you wrote ultimately had been written in some ways before. there was the classic news week let's report the campaign but not actually report it until after the fact, that's the agreement and then they come out with this thing. but "game change" was sort of

the very best and the most suck sisful of those. is it harder -- successful of those. is it harder for you, people who saw the last book, were there people more reluctant to talk to you? talk about this time versus last time? >> it was almost exactly the same in terms of how hard it was. >> yeah. >> widespread extensive cooperation from people in both parties. >> : right. >> the things that caused people to cooperate with us the first time were all still the case, including or long-standing professional relationships with people in both parties. >> yep. >> and a respect for their time and for what they did in putting their heart and soul into whatever campaign they worked on or for the candidate's campaigns they ran. we had very few people decline to participate. >> of course, that's the up version. the more cynical version is people want their version of the story out there. so in some respect, they're molt vaited to tell their -- vote vaited to tell their -- motivated to tell their version of the story.

>> honestly, the questions of the motivations of why people talk to us, it's almost beside the point. in journalism, whatever journalism you do, daily, monthly, weekly, broadcast, electronic, what you're doing is sorting among all kinds of motivations. that's what you do. that's what we're about. that's what our job is. >> right. >> it's trying to figure out what actually happened regardless of what people's motivations for telling you. if they tell you something it's true, if they tell you something is false, it's false. and our job is to figure that out. >> the volume of the interviews are obviously quantitatively different than what journalisms are able to do these days. if you are interviewing somebody eight times after a sense you're going to get a sense if whether their story matches up. that quantity of interviews just makes that possible. >> what is the take-away from this book. so number who is coming to this

book, they paid some attention to the campaign but they now warnlt to -- want to understand what the lesson of this campaign is through the lens of your book. >> well, boiling it down to one is hard, it's kind of the same lesson as last one, which running for president is an extraordinary human endeavor that requires a lot of skill an a good measure of luck. >> same. do you agree with that? >> i would say the main lesson of this book -- there's two. >> yes. >> one is that -- let the record show i restricted myself to one. >> you did. >> one is that you really ought to get sleep. sleep is crucial. almost every big mistake -- i think in life. every big mistake made in the book is made by a candidate is because they're over tired. the ther is golf. we had no idea but there are apparently like 13 pivotal golf scenes in the book. we don't know we were writing a book about golf, but we were.

>> let me ask you to roll forward, you have lives as expert political reporters, commentators, you pay attention to this stuff all the time. you didn't stop paying at then shun when the book reporting was done. the p r president is in a world of hurt right now. if the election had been in 2013, as opposed to 2012, you can always play this game, much more challenging situation for him. he had not a very good year for a guy who won election a year ago. >> take it back to the book because that's my analysis. he ran in a way basically saying the last year of his first term was going to be devoted not to getting anything done, because he didn't think he could with the republicans, but to try to win the election, get a new mandate and get things through. he did it alienating the business community and he did it in a way that didn't leave him that close to democrats in congress. so he starts the term in a very weak position. and i've been saying for a while, if he can't write the ship this year, the notion that

real win back control of the house to the democrats i think is pretty ludicrous and that means he may have a four-year term where nothing gets done. >> that's the discussion right now, the healthcare.gov situation and we're not out of it, but basically rolling out of it, he may be a lame duck now and unable to get any big -- look what he's doing to his judicial nominees as we sit here. >> the one thing that the white house holds on to is the beat of the news cycle. six weeks ago republicans after the shutdown and it was just over. the healthcare thing hit in a big way. now obama had deemed it impossible, this will have a shorter half-life than we think, essprnlly if -- especially if they can get the problem fixed with healthcare. the combination of the healthcare website and the things that are attached to that, the systemic issues around

the healthcare system, if those things get fixed in a relatively timely way, i think he can still recover. if they can't, he'll be done, because his credibility now is so much at stake. >> i think doing healthcare in a partisan way is going to go down in history as somewhat an error and maybe a gigantic error. they sugar coated that there's going to be losers under this reform. >> there has to be. >> and as more people see their healthcare change or their premiums go up or the overall cost in terms of how their healthcare spending goes, i think he's going to face a nitpicking by his opponents that it's going to be very difficult to make this seem in the short-term like a winner of the country. >> you guys will end here. does it leech into 2016, so hilary clinton leaves the administration at the end of the first term, she's chilling, but obviously she's looking really hard by all accounts at running in the next election, and until

these problems, the assumption was that, you know, whatever happened in the obama administration might not really land at her feet. does that calculation, john, now change? >> well, i think yes. certainly. i mean, she's going to be running -- if she runs, and if she becomes the democratic nominee, the difficulty, historic difficulties of winning a third consecutive terms for the in-power party are, you know, high bar. >> right. >> and right now, put aside healthcare, right now, the economy's gotten a little bitter, but the overall eight years of obama may not be a period that anyone will ever look back on as having been a period of strong economic growth, unemployment is still actually quite high. and he/she, -- she was a member of his administration. there's still, she's -- her main thing -- her last job would have been secretary of state for barack obama and she's going to

be having to deal with that. >> agree? >> i do. the third party is a tough thing. one of the thing the president has never solved is what is the obama theory about the case of the k4eu. and the economic statistics unless there's some changes will not be good. >> fairly limping along. >> i think people want to see a president in this age with so much uncertainty economy, that's his plan, that's his thesis about how the american economy should work. i don't think he's made that case in a way that i could enunciate, i think most voters would feel the same way. i think that's a danger for him. as well as a danger for the next democrat, but if they've got a better way to enunciate it, then maybe they have a chance. >> one big thing in her favor which the republican have done nothing, nothing, in the last 12 months to cure the fundamental structural problems they have with winning a national

election. >> yeah. >> they've not moved the ball forward 1 inch since election day of 2012, and if they are at status quo from election day 2012, they real lose bigger than they lost in 2012, because they're just structurally bedeviled right now. >> the hunt for puffer fish, what's the name of the book going to be? >> as you stay in the television world, stay tuned. >> thank you great for coming back. great to see you both, personally and professional. john heilemann, john halperin, thanks very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, q and as of past guests and an archive

of past episode. >> chris christie pursues the guy bran dishing an ice cream cone heckling him, not necessarily the most presidential act ever committed. funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community, and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community. experienced, respected and tested. also, by hilco partners, texas government affairs consultancy and it's global health care consulting business unit, hilco elt, and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank