Game Change - The time before the Iowa caucus

As an Iowan I'm happy that the first 170 pages of the book are dominated by the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. New Hampshire got the next 20 pages. That pretty well sums up the relative importance of the two events.

Here are my takeouts with (page numbers)

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid believed Hillary would weigh down the senate candidates in 2008 and urged Obama to run. (33)
• More surprisingly, Chuck Schumer (the other senator from Hillary's New York) believed Hillary to be vulnerable because of Bill's more recent indiscretions. (36)
• Hillary's own investigators tracked down all the rumors and were able to conclude that "Bill was indeed having an affair - and not a frivolous one-night stand but a sustained romantic relationship." (50-51)
• David Geffen (Hollywood magnate who was an early supporter of Bill Clinton twenty years ago) was disturbed by Bill's travels with playboy Ron Burkle. When 'asked if he thought if Bill was was still fooling around, Geffen would reply, 'Do you think the Pope's a Catholic?'" (87)
• Prior to deciding to run Obama spoke at the Harkin Steak Fry (which I still kick myself for missing) (56), felt good about Iowa (64), knew that if he won Iowa he'd likely be the nominee (62) and even conducted focus groups in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. (65) <-- Really? I would love to know anyone who participated in that focus group.
• Hillary spent $45 million on her senate reelection in 2006 against a weak opponent. That left her only $10 million to roll over to the presidential campaign. (78) That senate campaign with a way too large high-priced staff was a sign of the future.
• Because Iowa had come to know Edwards (or so we thought) during the 2004 campaign he was the early front runner in 2007. Hillary's own poll had it at 38% Edwards with Obama and her tied at 16%. "...she put on a brave face. 'It's better than I thought it would be,' she said. 'We have our work cut out for us." (93)
• "If Hillary was going to be competitive there she would need to go all out. The problem was, she hated it there." (94) Later on the same page: "She found the Iowans diffident and presumptuous; she felt they were making her grovel... Over and over, she complained about the system that gave Iowa so much power in selecting the nominee. 'This is so stupid,' she would say. 'So unfair.'"
• One of Hillary's people - Mike Henry - wrote a memo in May 2007 explaining why she should skip Iowa. He was stupid enough to also send it to a friend and less than 12 hours later The New York Times had it. (95) Once it became public there was no way she could pull out of Iowa because it would have been read as a defeat.
• Bill Clinton was not happy that the credo in Iowa politics is that you can't go negative. "... the one thing Iowans won't abide was negative campaigning." (98) I'm not sure I believe that, but it's often said. Anyhow, "Bill wondered if Iowa was laying a triple whammy on his wife: she couldn't attack, she couldn't quit, and she couldn't win." (98)
• While Hillary didn't like Iowa she did fully understand the state's importance as she told her people, "You realize... we're only Iowa away from winning this." I whole-heartedly agree. If Hillary had won the Iowa caucus she'd be president now.
• Obama bored people at early town hall meetings "taking ten minutes to respond to the simplest inquiries." (110) Yes, yes, and yes. While I love thoughtful answers, Obama's inability to be concise made me wonder if he was the right guy to be the nominee.
• It's amazing how many fellow senators did not want Hillary to be the nominee. At one point in 2007 Schumer was "telling fellow senators that Obama needed to take a two-by-four to Hillary." And since Obama wasn't willing to do it they wondered if he was tough enough to win. (116)
• Obama knew he wasn't at the top of his game in the fall of 2007. He and his team planned for the Des Moines Jefferson-Jackson dinner to be the turn around for his campaign as it had been for Gore and Kerry. (120)
• On Elizabeth Edwards: "The nearly universal assessment among (the Edward's aides) was that there was no one on the national stage for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was more disturbing." (127) Neither Edwards nor his wife come out looking good in this book.
• The book explains that Jefferson-Jackson (known as JJ in the political geek world) was the turn around for Obama's campaign. (150-51) But it really misses why he won the event so clearly: Hillary performed terribly. She had a sore throat and her voice was off. In this large indoor arena she spoke only to her crowd, keeping her back to the rest of the audience. Bill sensed JJ was a turning point for Obama. (155)
  
• Our former Gov. Vilsack proved he was clueless in advising Hillary's campaign. (153) He said, the young will not caucus so Obama's big crowds of young people are nothing to worry about.
• The book goes to great lengths to detail dissension within Hillary's campaign. Specifically, how much everyone hated her pollster Mark Penn and thought that her campaign manager Patti Soylis Doyle was in over her head. Both points were widely talked about during the campaign.
• Penn was proud of how many times he was able to say "cocaine" in reference to Obama during a Hardball interview. (163)
• Hillary's campaign thought the Register's endorsement might help them win the Iowa caucuses. (164)

Just before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus, every campaign went into their final pitch. I remember seeing Hillary at the Vinton high school. Her performance stunned me and the book explains it well: "Hillary embarked on what The New York Times described as a 'likability tour' of Iowa. She brought her husband along to vouch for her warm and fuzzy side. She brought her best friend from sixth grade. She brought farmers from New York to tell Iowans how she'd helped them... Gone from her speeches were any strident tones. Speaking as if she were on Quaaludes, her voice was bedtime story soft, her cadences syrupy slow." (165) She did speak as though she was on quaaludes and I will never understand why they did it.

• Vilsack again proved what little feel he had for his own party and state. When the Register released its final poll showing Obama with a strong seven point lead he said he couldn't believe they were projecting 220,000 to show up. "And Vilsack, who knew the caucuses like the back of his hand, took one look at the numbers and said, 'That can't be right.'" (171)

Vilsack had a reason for his opinion: The previous high was 124,000 in 2004. But anyone in Iowa in 2008 knew it was an entirely new world. The Register actually underestimated turnout; the Iowa caucuses had 234,000 attendees.