In the 2012 election, neither Mitt Romney’s 47% remarks nor Barack Obama’s poor debate performance in Denver were dominant factors in the outcome according to Sides and Vavreck: “The impact of this debate showed, once again, how quickly even dramatic moments like the 47% video could be undone by new events as the tug-of-war between the candidates continued. It especially takes some major event to change their initial choice as to who to vote for. One of the main points made in this mathematics and polling-based treatise is that voters tend to be almost evenly split in American presidential elections and, thus, it takes something substantive to move them to one side or the other.

A front cover blurb from Nate Silver promises that The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election is “The definitive account of what really happened and what really mattered in the campaign.” This is far from a definitive account. There are books that over-promise and under-deliver this is one of them. The Christian Science Monitor, responding to one of Obama's uses of the phrase, defined the expression in two ways.Is The Gamble a truly definitive look at the 2012 election? But the title also didn't make sense because: Who is doubling down, on what, and how?

When the book was announced, the title was not embraced, being a weird merger of the title from the previous, successful book and this 'double down' mini-meme from 2012. This new one, while not without good insider reporting, is somewhat limited by the fact that the 2012 presidential campaign was only the most exciting contest of the past four years. That one, featuring an ingenue governor from Alaska, detailed the ups and downs of one of the most exciting presidential campaigns in decades. The book is the sequel to the pair's smash hit 2008 campaign book, Game Change. (Among those who are excited: toddlers, flexible women, redheads, and professional animal impersonators.) There's just one problem: a review of the evidence at hand suggests that Halperin and Heilemann may not actually know what 'double down' means.

Īmerica is excited about Double Down: Game Change 2012, the new book about the Romney-Obama campaign from political journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. This article is from the archive of our partner.

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