John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime was recently adapted into a film starring Ed Harris as John McCain and Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin. The film focuses on Sarah Palin’s run for Vice President. But the book is primarily about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton competing for the Democratic nomination in 2008, with smaller portions devoted to John Edwards and his run for the Democratic nomination, the Republican primary race, and the Obama/McCain competition. In writing it, the authors spoke with political insiders as the races unfolded and promised to keep everything anonymous, and to not publish it until after the election. Consequently there is a lot of shocking insider information. They pretty much covered everything pertaining to Palin pretty thoroughly in the film, but material pertaining to the other candidates wasn’t in the film. So I’ve helpfully summarized what I judged the most sensationalistic or interesting information from the rest of the book.

1. In the preliminary stages of the campaign for president, Democratic party heavyweights Harry Reid, Tom Daschle, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, Byron Dorgan, and Bill Nelson, as well as many other unnamed democrats, agreed that they wanted Obama to run for president as an alternative to Hillary Clinton, who they felt wasn’t viable, or didn’t want to be president.

2. Once he was out of the presidential spotlight, Bill Clinton, according to numerous rumors, embarked upon many affairs. He hung around a lot with billionaire Ron Burkle. The two would fly to LA, Vegas, and Miami for partying, and Burkle’s private jet acquired the nickname Air Fuck One. A whole string of women are named in the book (the only one I recognized was Gina Gershon), though the affairs are dismissed as unprovable. But Hillary’s advisors ultimately focus on one particular name and conclude that the rumors are true and Clinton has been engaged in a serious, long-term affair with this unnamed woman. At this time, Hillary was basically living in DC with her mother, while Bill was living in New York. Ron Burkle was a neighbor of David Geffen in Hollywood. Geffen was an early and enthusiastic champion of Obama, partly, it is implied, because he saw the wild life Bill Clinton lived with Burkle, and he realized that this kind of thing would make Hillary a non-viable candidate due to the scandal of Bill’s life, which could not be contained if they returned to the White House.

3. Game Change revealed a scandalous quote by Harry Reid about Obama: the United States is “ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama,  a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’ ” Ouch. He apologized to Obama.

4. The people working for the Edwards campaign concluded that Elizabeth Edwards was the person who had the greatest disparity between public perception and private behavior of anyone in history. Her public persona was of this wonderful, earthy, motherly person, a heroic cancer survivor, mother of four, who humanized John Edwards, because the slick Edwards didn’t seem the sort of guy to have a “fat” wife who was 4 years older than him. But the people who knew her in the campaign said she was a shrill, selfish, nasty, crazy woman who treated them badly, like worthless lackeys, who openly ridiculed her husband and acted in petty ways.

5. John Edwards, according to his long-time staffers, many of whom had worked on his earlier campaigns for president, was a humble, nice guy, the son of a mill worker who was the first member of his family to go to college. They liked him; he was considerate and treated them well. They had no concerns about him ever cheating on his wife, despite the fact that he was constantly being approached by beautiful women interested in him. They thought of him as asexual, really, and he and his team had developed a way for them to deflect women who approached him. But after he was chosen as Kerry’s running mate in 2004, he became what they referred to as the “ego monster.” He insisted upon private planes, demanded special treatment, was aloof and treated staffers badly. He reveled in the special treatment he received and began to accept no less. When Rielle Hunter first approached Edwards at a restaurant, she immediately behaved in an obviously inappropriate manner, flirting outrageously, respecting no boundaries, spouting new age babble, and happily greeting new people by telling them that she was a witch. Even before they realized Edwards was having an affair with her, they wanted her gone. The work she did was ridiculous and wrong, but Edwards insisted upon it. Hunter was the basis for a character in a Jay McInerney novel, a sexually insatiable party girl. But perhaps the biggest problem was that Hunter fed the Ego Monster, reinforcing and encouraging all of the worst of the traits that Edwards had begun to exhibit. She kept up a constant litany of encouragement that he was special, had a divine destiny, was going to be the next great world leader, didn’t have to listen to anyone else, could make his own rules, deserved to live and spend as lavishly as he wanted. I realized that basically, Hunter was Edwards’ Rasputin. His advisors were increasingly concerned and confronted him several times about it. Each time, he promised to not see her anymore. Finally, he had a huge fight with his closest advisor, basically blaming him for the affair because he wasn’t “man enough” to make Edwards stay away from Hunter. He did eventually stay away from her, after the National Enquirer broke the first of many stories about the relationship, followed by an incredibly ugly confrontation between John and Elizabeth Edwards. But Hunter was already pregnant by that time . . .

6. John McCain was detached and unenthusiastic about his campaign. His campaign was underfunded compared to the other Republicans.

7. McCain “favorite clothing” was a dress shirt and boxer shorts. He frequently wore the combination in his hotel room during meetings

8. There were serious rumors of a McCain affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. The New York Times published an article about it, but it really went no where, mostly because Republicans seemed to hate the New York Times more than they hated adultery. Iseman sued the Times, but settled the suit for no money. Cindy McCain may have also had an affair, though it was not publicized.

9. Before one of the debates, the main Republican candidates—McCain, Huckabee, Giuliani, and Fred Thompson—all bonded over the one thing they had in common: they all hated Mitt Romney.

10. McCain and Obama had enmity going back for awhile due to Obama rejecting a proposal of McCain’s early in Obama’s senate career; McCain wrote him an amusing but churlish letter about it that annoyed Obama. McCain saw Obama as an arrogant and untrustworthy punk, and Obama felt he was being patronized by McCain.

11. Obama’s campaign was really, really well run. Game Change harps on how so-and-so didn’t have much money for their campaign—Hillary and McCain were terribly underfunded. What it really means is that they didn’t have much money . . . compared to Obama. They had plenty of money compared to other years.

12. McCain clinched the nomination March 4, 2008. We’re into April and Romney still hasn’t sealed the deal.

13. There is an implication that the McCain marriage is somewhat of convenience nowadays, though it was initially one of love. McCain lives in DC most of the year, while Cindy spends all of her time in Arizona.

14. One of the most humanizing comments about Palin is that she talked constantly about Trig, who was only four months old when she went on the road for the campaign. Initially the Palin family stayed in Alaska, but later the McCain campaign brought the whole family along, after Palin seemed to get very depressed, almost catatonic, for long periods of time, and stopped eating or drinking much.

15. McCain originally thought very seriously of having Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Lieberman and Lindsay Graham were two of McCain’s best friends in the Senate and ran a lot of things by them during the campaign.

16. Joe Lieberman coached Palin for the vice-presidential debate.

17. Palin regretted accepting the nomination after she realized all that it entailed and all that she had to endure.

18. Insiders in the campaign talked about there being two Palins—one vivacious and charismatic in public, the other almost catatonic in private.

19. Obama ended up getting angry at Biden due to some tactless things Biden said during the campaign, and relations were frosty for some time until Biden apologized.

20. Biden was really proud of “the Biden brand” and “the Biden name,” and spoke of them in a manner that it is thought by some to be self-important and silly.

21. Edwards retained hope until very late in the scandal that he could still be Obama’s Attorney General. His aides were incredulous that he calculated that if he admitted to the affair but denied paternity of the baby, then he could still get that Obama appointment.

22. Hillary’s staff was unsure if Bill really wanted Hillary to be president or not. His “help” often hurt more than helped.