Game Change

Game Change revisited the presidential campaign trail and got the inside story on everything from what the candidates were thinking when the decided to run for office to their personal thoughts when the fateful election day came and passed. While the main topic of the book focused in on the major candidates and their running mates, I believe the most beneficial lesson to the company is the examination of the candidate’s campaign offices and the candidate’s leadership of the group. The book goes gives us a snapshot into the campaign headquarters and how they worked or did not work. The three main players (Obama, McCain and Hillary) all had very different approaches to how their campaign was run.

First I would like to take a look into Hilary’s campaign. Hilary kept the same political machine that had helped drive the Clinton’s to their prior success. However this political machine appears throughout the book to be full of factions and not all working together towards the same goal. Often times the internal strife would conflict with the overall goal of the campaign. For instance Hilary’s advisors were still not set on what her message should be. She had four separate advisors all with separate beliefs on where they should be headed. This was immediately following her crying episode in New Hampshire where she showed her softer side causing some to continue to waver between showing a strong stance proving she could be commander and chief and showing her softer side. Hilary’s leadership and control was also suspect within the group. Hilary was often ignore by her advisors and even undermined by Bill Clinton. A good example of this is when Bill decided that he could and would continue to campaign in South Carolina P203… because he believed he could win. In the end they did win the state but it was a view into the insubordination from her team and even her husband. Moments such as this fractured in the armor of the unstoppable machine and eventually played a...