Double Down Book Review
When you want a behind-the-scenes look at a Presidential election, Double Down, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin will show you what occurs. This behind-the-scenes look at the 2012 Presidential election exposes the unscripted activities that took place to deliver the re-election campaign for Barack Obama. The interviews conducted by the authors deliver a first-person account that would make you believe they were in every meeting that occurred during the election cycle.
One of my favorite stories in the book delivers a seemingly first-person account of a Governor Romney’s aide traveling from his home in New Hampshire down to Belmont, Massachusetts for a meeting with the Governor. The delivery of the text is written in such a way that you are transported back in time to this moment.
In reading this book, the reader needs to appreciate the amount of time spent interviewing the subject and get them to recount the details. It is amazing to me that the aides to President Obama and Governor Romney could be offered any incentives to discuss the candid and personal challenges that occurred in 2012.
The focus of the book is on the candidates that represented the Republican and Democratic parties, but it spends time capturing the early entrants into the race that also wanted to be the subject of the book. The authors help the reader to understand why some of the candidates never entered the race or why some of them faltered.
My favorite part of politics is the behind-the-scenes stories. Double Down is an amazing summary of all of those meetings that took place in 2012. I give the authors a tremendous amount of credit for the level of detail they brought to life through their interviews. This is a worthwhile book to read if you like a behind-the-scenes expose of what occurs in a Presidential election.