Game Change

Game Change is the 2010 book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin that documents the 2008 race between Barack Obama and John McCain, and the events leading up to it.

It covers all the major events of the campaign, with most of the focus on the contentious Democratic primaries, in particular the fight between Barack and Hillary. In addition, it offers startling and perceptive insights into the behind-the-scenes drama during the election — Obama’s attempts to remain the Clintons’ increasing ire at the media for its soft coverage of Obama, the complete destruction of Edwards’ campaign and marriage before, during and after his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter, the last-minute switchout of Sarah Palin for Joe Lieberman for Republican vice president and the increasing chaos of the McCain campaign after the financial crisis, and through it all the constant interplay and threats of racism and sexism. An engaging read for anyone interested in politics, regardless of party preference.

A TV film based on the book, primarily focusing on Sarah Palin, aired on HBO in 2012.

Tropes used in Game Change include:

• Battle Couple: Bill and Hillary
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Elizabeth Edwards, despite her public Ill Girl persona
• The Chosen One / The Messiah: Barack to the Clintons and McCains, who were so irritated by the media's soft handling of him they felt it was borderline Villain with Good Publicity.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The Clintons managed to put aside their dislike of Obama and support him in the coming election. Hillary even made a surprise visit on the Democratic Convention floor asking the covention to declare together that Obama would be their candidate and president.
• Enemy Mine: McCain ended up employing people from Bush’s campaigns, despite the fact that they ran extremely nasty smears against him during the 2000 primaries, including claiming his adopted daughter from Bangladesh was really his illegitimate child.
• Foregone Conclusion: Everyone knows who won in the end.
• It Got Worse: Pretty much the description of everyone’s campaign except for Obama’s, but painfully present during Edwards' campaign.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Rielle Hunter to Edwards. She was fascinated with New Age philosophy, astrology and reincarnation, and would announce to people she had just met that she was a witch. She also pumped Edwards up, claiming he could be as great a leader as MLK Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi.
• Meet the New Boss: A common accusation thrown at McCain was that he would be Bush Lite.
• True Companions: All the campaigns started out with one. Only Barack’s survived.
• The Unchosen One: Sarah Palin — McCain’s original pick for VP was Joe Lieberman

The TV movie features examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Right after Steve tells one of his colleagues to stop making fun of Dick Cheney, who he thinks is "misunderstood", he has to stop himself from laughing at the next joke. ("How does he eat wearing Darth Vader's mask?")
• Attention Whore / It's All About Me: Palin is so concerned about her status in Alaska that she demands they do a poll despite the fact it costs $60,000 and the campaign has half the funds of Obama's. After her successful debate her attitude only gets worse.
• Bald of Awesome: Steve Schmidt.
• Based on a True Story / Foregone Conclusion
• Big Screwed-Up Family: Averted, the Palins are portrayed as perfectly normal, loving people thrust into a very unnerving situation.
• Book Ends: Steve Schmidt's interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes.
• Cluster F-Bomb / Gosh Dang It to Heck: McCain and Palin's way of speaking, respectively.
• Did Not Do the Research: Twofold, "in-universe": The team who was vetting Palin didn't actually talk to anyone in Alaska due to lack of time and Palin basically has to take a remedial social studies course to cover everything she doesn't know about foreign countries (Foreign Policy expert: "This is Germany. They were the primary antagonists during World War I and World War II"). Eventually it's decided that she does better when she "acts" through her debates.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Said by one of the campaign managers: "Dick Cheney said picking her was rash, and when Dick Cheney has the moral high ground..."
• Freak-Out / Heroic BSOD: After the infamous Katie Couric interview Palin kind of goes into a downward spiral and people start worrying about her mental health (or if she was mentally healthy to begin with). It doesn't help that Palin blames her campaign manager for not prepping her despite the fact it's her own fault she didn't "study".
• Gilligan Cut: McCain tells his crew they're going to be adults in this election -- cut to them laughing at this You Tube video mocking Sen. Edwards.
• Gone Horribly Right / Took a Level in Jerkass: After Palin's debate with Biden her confidence soars and she starts making unplanned statements to reporters, contradicting McCain's policies about stem cell research despite saying she wouldn't, and even wants to make her own concession speech on election night. Her behavior is so aggravating her own campaign manager couldn't vote for her.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Both Steve Schmidt and John McCain arguably. Schmidt was more interested into turning Palin into a "celebrity" to combat Obama's popularity that he completely neglected the fact that she was completely ignorant to politics. McCain completely turned a blind eye to her media whoring.
• The Ingenue / Naive Newcomer: Palin (and Obama, although he's not the focus of the film).
• Irony: McCain criticizes Obama for his lack of experience and "star power", but his team goes with Palin despite her (relative) lack of political experience because she's charismatic.
• It Will Never Catch On: "[The day after the elections] no one will know who Sarah Palin is."
• Mama Bear: Palin gets especially upset when her family is bashed by the media, and she did not want to say she and Todd were "proud to be grandparents" after their teen daughter's pregnancy is revealed (she's not too thrilled about seeing baby-daddy Levi either: "I see you cut off your mullet").
• MSNBC Conservative: McCain and Steve Schmidt.
• New Media Are Evil: Thanks to YouTube and the 24 hour news networks none of the candidates get any relief from criticism and mockery (even from Fox News!). Ironically Palin was picked partially because she looked good on You Tube.
• Oh Crap: Many of these occur among the campaign workers during their various dealings with Palin.
• Poisonous Friend: How the movie portrays Palin.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: McCain; he doesn't want to use Rev. "God Damn America!" Wright against Obama and he's really disturbed when people start saying Obama is a Muslim Socialist.
  • Hands-Off Parenting: He has very little interaction with Palin and at the end he's no longer sure he can control her.
• Spiritual Successor: To HBO's other election movie Recount, about the 2000 ballot count and directed by the same person; possibly a trilogy with Too Big To Fail, about the 2008 financial crisis.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Sarah Palin, both in-universe and meta-wise. The book was on the 2008 campaign in general, the movie focuses on Sarah Palin's role in the Republican Campaign. In the movie, Palin is portrayed as an Attention Whore who goes so far as to prepare her own concession speech and has to be told by Schmidt that A) vice-presidents don't give concession speeches and B) she is not going steal the attention away from the first African-American president of the United States.