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Book Description

“What am I supposed to do when he starts spewing his bullshit?”
—Barack Obama, preparing for his first debate with Mitt Romney

In their runaway bestseller Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama’s improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen—facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money machers, and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrest back control of the White House—and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught of super PACs and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of GOP contenders—ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish—as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination.

Double Down exposes blunders, scuffles, and machinations far beyond the klieg lights of the campaign trail: Obama storming out of a White House meeting with his high command after accusing them of betrayal. Romney’s mind-set as he made his controversial “47 percent” comments. The real reasons New Jersey governor Chris Christie was never going to be Mitt’s running mate. The intervention held by the president’s staff to rescue their boss from political self-destruction. The way the tense détente between Obama and Bill Clinton morphed into political gold. And the answer to one of the campaign’s great mysteries—how did Clint Eastwood end up performing Dada dinner theater at the Republican convention?

In Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann take the reader into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign for a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } “What am I supposed to do when he starts spewing his bullshit?”
—Barack Obama, preparing for his first debate with Mitt Romney

In their runaway bestseller Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama’s improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen—facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money machers, and dysfunction within the West Wing. As 2012 looms, leaders of the Republican Party, salivating over Obama’s political fragility, see a chance to wrest back control of the White House—and the country. So how did the Republicans screw it up? How did Obama survive the onslaught of super PACs and defy the predictions of a one-term presidency? Double Down follows the gaudy carnival of GOP contenders—ambitious and flawed, famous and infamous, charismatic and cartoonish—as Mitt Romney, the straitlaced, can-do, gaffe-prone multimillionaire from Massachusetts, scraped and scratched his way to the nomination.

Double Down exposes blunders, scuffles, and machinations far beyond the klieg lights of the campaign trail: Obama storming out of a White House meeting with his high command after accusing them of betrayal. Romney’s mind-set as he made his controversial “47 percent” comments. The real reasons New Jersey governor Chris Christie was never going to be Mitt’s running mate. The intervention held by the president’s staff to rescue their boss from political self-destruction. The way the tense détente between Obama and Bill Clinton morphed into political gold. And the answer to one of the campaign’s great mysteries—how did Clint Eastwood end up performing Dada dinner theater at the Republican convention?

In Double Down, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann take the reader into back rooms and closed-door meetings, laying bare the secret history of the 2012 campaign for a panoramic account of an election that was as hard fought as it was lastingly consequential.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Heilemann is the national political correspondent and columnist for New York magazine. An award-winning journalist and the author of Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era, he is a former staff writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The Economist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Mark Halperin is editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time magazine. He is the author of The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President and the coauthor of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008. He has covered six presidential elections, including during his decade as the political director for ABC News. He lives in Manhattan.

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61 of 66 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Triple Down --- A Three-volume encyclopedia of the 2012 election November 5, 2013

By Alan F. Sewell

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a comprehensive and surprisingly unbiased account of the 2012 campaign and the backstories behind the candidates who took part in it. The book is in three parts, each of which is comprehensive enough to be a stand-alone book in its own right.

The first "book" (Part I) is the backstory of Obama's Presidency from 2008 to 2012. This was my least favorite part because it was clinically written without much emotion or new insights. Authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann describes Obama as a moderate, pragmatic sort of person who has as little use for the self-serving Black Civil Rights establishment as he does for the Conservative Tea Party activists. According to Halperin and Heilemann, Obama may come across at times as a petulant professor, but he's hardly the extreme Liberal-verging-on-Marxist maniac that has taken root in popular Conservative folklore.

Halperin and Heilemann give a fair account of Obama's political battles with the Republican House of Representatives over healthcare reform, banking bailouts, and federal budgets. But a politically savvy reader will already be familiar with this material. I'd suggest skimming this part or skipping it altogether and getting started with the second part, which makes the book a worthwhile read.

The second part --- describing the Republican primary candidates' machinations to win the nomination --- has all the drama and excitement you'd expect in a political book

It starts out with a fair-minded account of Mitt Romney's career. Nothing new here, because Mitt has been around long enough for most of us to know his story. He's one of those incorruptible personalities whose scandal-free life seems dull by its very absence of misconduct. The only surprise is that the real money brokers in the Republican party seem to have viewed Mitt as a penny-ante operator:

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Trump was publicly sniffy about Romney as a capitalist, denigrating him as a "small-business guy," and privately disdainful of Bain. "They'd buy a company and fire everyone," he told his associates.
=======

Where my interest was really piqued was in Halperin and Heilemann bringing to life the second-tier challengers like Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Mitch Daniels, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum.

Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee had spent years as low-paid governors of their states. They had belatedly achieved comfortable wealth in the private sector after retiring from public service. Going into 2012 they had to face the agonizing decision of whether to risk every penny of their personal wealth on the time-consuming and expensive campaign to be President. Little wonder that they declined to enter the contest.

I came away disappointed with Donald Trump, whose three billion dollars would have enabled him to campaign. But Trump let his devotion to personal fame and fortune trump his desire to serve the American people by campaigning to be their President. He felt that running for public office would cost him money by taking him away from his business.

I also enjoyed the stories of tension between fellow Minnesotans Tim Pawlenty and Michelle Bachmann who appear to have detested each other. Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich also have their interesting personal and professional stories told, usually in good-natured ways. And I LOVED the antics of professional Republican campaign consultants Karl Rove and the delightfully mischievous Ed Rollins. The candidates may have put on a good face in being nicey-nicey to each other in the television debates, but their professional campaign staffs dished the dirt behind the scenes. If the authors' story is true, Jon Huntsman's staff sabotaged Herman Cain's campaign by going public with the womanizing stories.

But the most meaningful insight is about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. The book should be read for that reason alone. Halperin and Heilemann don't cheerlead for any candidate, but the stories of Governor Christie as told through the eyes of others is a powerful endorsement of him as a candidate for 2016.

The Third Part of the book, about the presidential race between Obama and Romney, is, like the first part, only so-so. That's probably because most of the stories are still fresh on our minds --- the Bain Capital controversies; Obama's dreadful first debate; Romney's "47% moochers and takers" gaffe; and Romney's search for a running mate that culminated the selection of Paul Ryan.

The strength of this book --- its completeness --- is also its weakness. Some may feel that it is TOO complete. For example, I was not at all interested in the pages devoted to minor non-candidate Haley Barbour who never got into the Republican primaries. There is also a "facts, just the facts" tone to the book. There is no opinionating by the author about WHY the nomination process and the election turned out the way it did. The dry facts are presented, and the readers are left to draw their own conclusions.

The book is more like an encyclopedia of pick-and-choose topics. I spent most of my time on Part II, which by itself justified the purchase. The entertaining dramas of the Republicans competing against each other made for some delightful stories, as well as getting to know these second-tier candidates (some of whom will be first-tier in 2016 or 2020) made this a worthwhile read. The best was the part devoted to understanding what makes Governor Chris Christie tick. I came away feeling even more comfortable with him as a Republican candidate for 2016 than I already was.

This book may be over-long and perhaps contains some material that is not of the highest interest. BUT it is THE encyclopedia of the 2012 political campaigns, the candidates who participated in them, and the backstories that went into making the candidates and their campaigns. It's the one "all you need to know" source for the life and times of every political personality of any relevance to the 2012 campaign. Read more ›

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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Marathon Men November 5, 2013

By The Ginger Man VINE VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

A half century ago, Theodore White wrote The Making of the President 1960 and, in so doing, changed the way in which we view political campaigns. Double Down follows the tradition of covering an election season as a contest in which tactics are far more interesting and prominent than are policies or moral choices. To the authors, "the 2012 election had the feel of a big casino, as the players took on the complexion of compulsive gamblers, pushing more and more chips into the center of the table." As with the previous book by these authors (Game Change), the very title refers to the campaign as a race rather than as the process of choosing a leader.

In Game Change, the authors delivered an entirely new characterization of Sarah Palin based on interviews with Republican strategist Steven Schmidt. Double Down does not bring as much new information to the table but it does present an almost seamless, inside look at the 2012 election from primaries through victory speech. The book is especially strong in its ability to show how the individual strengths and character flaws of each candidate inevitably stamp themselves upon the campaign. The authors also give due consideration to the changing role of money in the election as a result of Citizens United and the ever increasing impact of experts in each party on campaign planning and execution.

The book is more cursory in its analysis of policy differences between the candidates. The 2012 election became, in many ways, a referendum on Obama's performance and passage of the Affordable Health Care Act. This represented a complicated hurdle for Mitt Romney since the Act was based on a Heritage Foundation idea which Romney had championed in Massachusetts. Read more ›

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19 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but A Bit Short on Strategy November 5, 2013

By Loyd E. Eskildson HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

The title of this interesting book that greatly benefits from access to insiders refers to Romney supporters doubling down their financial support after Obama's disastrous first debate in Denver, along with Romney himself doubling down with his right-wing ideological statements and credibility. (The latter via picking Paul Ryan as V.P. partner.) Some say this metaphor could also refer to the authors' doubling down on their prior 'Game Change' about the 2008 first Obama campaign.

Obama had been hounded as a 'socialist' from the beginning, despite modeling his cap-and-trade climate change policy on that of Bush '41, an auto rescue program more market-minded than the one Bush '43 proposed, agreeing to extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich (in exchange for an extension of unemployment insurance, a payroll tax holiday, etc. totaling $238 billion), his refusal to nationalize the banks when even Alan Greenspan said he should, and his not pushing for a single-payer health-care law - even though the idea originated at the Heritage Foundation and had been implemented in Massachusetts by Romney. And until recently, the 'birther controversy had raged on and on, led by potential Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Obama had also moved to tone down the contentiousness within his circle of advisors, pushing out David Axelrod (media strategist, manager of his 2004 Senate race), Robert Gibbs (communications chief), and seemingly benefitting from Rahm Emmanuel's departure for Chicago. Yet, it was obvious after Denver that Obama was doubting himself and headed for disaster - despite his prior excellent speaking successes.

Readers learn Obama liked Bill Clinton - in small doses, disliked 'professional blacks' (including Charlie Rangel and Jesse Jackson Jr. Read more ›

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4.0 out of 5 stars Filled With Grand Manipulators and Political Hacks

DOUBLE DOWN is filled with political gossip, backstabbing, plotting, leaking, infighting, and intrigue. Read more

Published 4 hours ago by Jennifer Semple Siegel

5.0 out of 5 stars Barack Say Buy Diz Here Book, Playa!

I like fair and balanced books like Double Down because it has no agenda at all like what you normally read from the conservative media such as the Huffington Post and MSNBS. Read more

Published 2 days ago by Gilby Mitnick III Jr.

More About the Author

John Heilemann is the national political correspondent and columnist for New York magazine. An award-winning journalist and the author of Pride Before the Fall: TheTrials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era, he is a former staff writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The Economist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.