What about Double Down?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

I am half way through. Game Change was much more juicy. But, it's interesting to read about the loser Republicans.

[applegrove]

1. I'm taking it slow. Chalked full of details. Lots of people spilling the beans. Obama

comes across as authentic. Was interesting to read about his relationship to Biden. I like it.

[SheilaT]

2. I'm about 80 percent of the way.

I wish they'd taken the time to have an exhaustive dramatis personae, because I am honestly having a lot of trouble keeping track of all the various people in the many campaigns. And even though I'm now well into Mitt vs Barack, I still can't remember who is who all the time.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. Totally agree - don't know the backroom people among the campaigns. But

so far, the Romney team seems like they had the money, savvy, organization to respond
and change quickly and to attack and destroy people in their way. If they didn't have
to live with his tax/rich boy issues, reputation for firing people, and his 47% remarks, things might have been
different. thank god it didn't. Luckily, Obama had already be thoroughly vetted in 08.

[SheilaT]

4. Okay, so I finished the book.

It's okay, but for anyone who was paying reasonable attention there is simply nothing new. Or at least nothing verifiably new. They do have a rumor about Biden supposedly being in danger of being replaced, but that's about it.

I suspect it will be a book that will be much more interesting or useful in twenty years or so when people who were too young to have paid much attention to the 2012 election rediscover it. Except that by then there will probably be better books out there about this era, good biographies of at least some of the principals, and so on.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

5. Won't many of the same schmucks be running again? I am almost finished. I think what

I find most interesting are all the things that pointed to why Romney lost.

[SheilaT]

6. It's hard to say.

Some of them probably will be, but I personally think it's about two years too early to have any idea what the field will be like for either party.

I didn't feel that there was anything actually new to me in the book. Plus, it didn't do a very good job of capturing how for several months Republicans were desperate for anyone but Romney, and each of the other candidates had approximately three weeks of being well ahead of Romney, then each one in turn crashed and burned. They especially didn't show how totally bizarre Herman Cain was. He was beyond wacko. And he's barely mentioned in the book.

It also didn't really show how the 47% tape was such a huge story. At least it was in the world I inhabit, maybe not so much for watchers of Fox News.

[ramapo]

7. Enjoyable political porn

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Not a whole lot new for us political junkies but enough behind-the-scenes enticing details to more than satisfy. Being a Christie constituent, I found the details on his on-off VP prospects pretty interesting and more so now given the GWBgate perspective.

[Capt. Obvious]

8. I read it twice

I thought it was good, bordering on the great threshold. It couldn't come close to the first book but it had its moments.

[davidpdx]

9. I also thought Game Change was a little better

Back then I wasn't a grad student so I got through the book a bit quicker as well. This one took me a long time to get through.