Episode 14, with guests John Heilemann of GAME CHANGE, Jeanie Mamo, Michael Shaw of BagNewsNotes and Eric Welch and Josh Gatlin of Passcode Creative

John Heilemann, Jeanie Mamo, Michael Shaw, Eric Welch and Josh Gatlin are our interview guests this week
Show produced by Katherine Caperton
Original Air Date: June 11, 2011 on SiriusXM Satellite Radio “POTUS” Channel 124.  Click above to listen.

Political fanatics of certain generations have four seminal campaign books on their shelves among the large library that comprises the genre.

From the 1972 campaign, there’s The Boys on the Bus, by Timothy Crouse, detailing the life on the road for reporters following Richard Nixon, George McGovern, and others.

Also from that era, there’ Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, which helped to launch any number of careers in journalism or politics.

Then, you have to skip over three cycles, countless books by Jack Germond and Jules Witcover, among others, to get to a fat silver volume with the Presidential Seal on its spine — Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes, about the 1988 campaign that, until twenty years later, 2008, stood as the very definition of the campaign book.

Enter Game Change, by John Heliemann and Mark Halperin, which literally changed the game of campaign books and campaign reporting.  It was a stunning narrative when galleys first appeared at the end of 2009 and has been creating chatter ever since, notably because of the unvarnished portrait of John and the late Elizabeth Edwards and how that family has stayed in the news even through this week.

By 2013, I suppose, there will be a fifth seminal book on that campaign war story shelf – Game Change 2, or whatever it’s eventually called, for which Mssrs. Heilemann and Halperin are now laying the groundwork.

And even as that work is ongoing, Game Change is now wrapping principal photography in Baltimore, Maryland as a major production by HBO, with Ed Harris as J0hn McCain and Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin.

Beyond is duties working on the book, John Heilemann writes prolifically for New York Magazine and you can catch him on many mornings offering his analysis on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

John joins the conversation Polioptics to chew the fat over covering campaigns, painting pictures of their behind the scenes mechanics and what happens when a photo is accidently tweeted to 40,000 followers.

Later in the broadcast, we’re joined by Jeanie Mamo from the George W. Bush White House and Michael Shaw, from BagNewsNotes, to offer his unique take on the images that shape political conversation.

Finally, we’re visited by Eric Welch and Josh Gatlin from Passcode Creative.  They’re the team that converted images from Sarah Palin’s Northeast bus tour into a viral online video that helps to burnish the Palin Brand.  Looking at another Republican icon, Ronald Reagan, here’s just a sample of how they take the old Hal Riney “Morning In America” theme and give it a distinctive 21st Century look and feel:

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From Game Change to Palin’s Bus Tour, it’s a show worth a very close listen.

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