{"id":3105,"date":"2010-01-11T15:27:30","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T20:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=3105"},"modified":"2010-01-11T15:27:30","modified_gmt":"2010-01-11T20:27:30","slug":"game-change-book-likely-to-impact-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/3105\/game-change-book-likely-to-impact-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"“Game Change” Book Likely to Impact 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not all behind-the-scenes political books definitively scuttle reputations and ambitions. For instance, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer\u2019s \u201cSpeech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor<\/a>\u201d caused a stir among fellow former Bushies, but after less than a month of notoriety<\/a>, the book took its place on the shelves of the chattering classes to be consumed and forgotten. But \u201cGame Change<\/a>\u201d, the new book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering during the 2008 presidential campaign is different. Way different.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Drudge Report<\/em> has no less than four distinct links commenting on the book\u2019s contents. There\u2019s confirmation about John Edwards\u2019 affair<\/a>, and more than you ever wanted to know about his dysfunctional marriage. There are stories about the Clintons attempting to use slights<\/a> and smears<\/a> to undermine Barack Obama\u2019s campaign. And of course, there\u2019s more evidence that John McCain did a disservice<\/a> to Sarah Palin and his supporters by failing to make sure she was prepared to be a Vice President. Oh yeah; don\u2019t be surprised if Harry Reid\u2019s racist remarks<\/a> about Obama presage a Dodd-like retirement announcement after a health care \u201creform\u201d bill gets signed.<\/p>\n

While the information in this book isn\u2019t likely to impact the 2010 congressional races because they\u2019ll be a referendum on the Democrats’ control of Washington, the same can\u2019t be said for which Republican candidates become serious presidential contnders in 2012. My guess is that the people most interested in this book are the politicos and journalists that make up the GOP establishment. Most of the sources denigrating Palin since the campaign are the moneymen and professional staff that have a hand in every presidential contest. They\u2019ve seen her act before, and no amount of Tea Party support is going to persuade them to promote her to the top of the ticket next time around. And now they have a printed counter-argument to Palin\u2019s \u201cGoing Rogue<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

All of which poses the question of who benefits the most from Palin\u2019s likely marginalization? Probably Mitt Romney. While keeping a low media profile compared to Palin\u2019s book tour and Mike Huckabee\u2019s television show<\/a>, Romney is doing the kind of chit building that wins primaries. Through his PAC<\/a> and endorsements he\u2019s currently in full back-scratching mode. Come campaign season, it will be time to cash in those chits for generous, top-down support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not all behind-the-scenes political books definitively scuttle reputations and ambitions. For instance, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer\u2019s \u201cSpeech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor\u201d caused a stir among fellow former Bushies, but after less than a month of notoriety, the book took its place on the shelves of the chattering classes to be consumed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[720,77,719,721,160,365],"class_list":["post-3105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-clintons","tag-harry-reid","tag-john-edwards","tag-john-mccain","tag-mitt-romney","tag-sarah-palin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3105"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3111,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105\/revisions\/3111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}