Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime is a book by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about the 2008 United States presidential election. Released on January 11, 2010, it was also published in the United Kingdom under the title Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House. The book is based on interviews with more than 300 people involved in the campaign. It discusses factors including Democratic Party presidential candidate John Edwards' extramarital affair, the relationship between Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his vice presidential running mate Joe Biden, the failure of Republican Party candidate Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign and Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy.

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 (fourteen chapters) is about the Democratic primary race between Obama and Clinton as well as the Edwards affair. Part 2 (three chapters) is about the Republican primary race. Part 3 (six chapters) describe the fall campaign between Obama and John McCain.

Steve Schmidt (born 1970) is an American campaign strategist and public relations worker for the U.S. Republican Party. He specializes in political "message development and strategy." Schmidt was the senior campaign strategist and advisor to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.

Schmidt, who is of German descent, son of a school teacher and a businessman, grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey, was an Eagle Scout, a tight end on the high school football team, a two-year member of the National Honor Society, and senior class vice president. In 1988, he was one of two graduating seniors voted "most likely to succeed" by his classmates at North Plainfield High School. He first handed out campaign materials for Democrat Bill Bradley's 1978 Senate campaign.

Schmidt attended the University of Delaware from 1988 through the spring of 1993, majoring in political science. He left three credits short of graduating because he did not pass a math course; Schmidt has said that he has been diagnosed with a learning disability that makes higher math difficult for him. He joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, was a member of the campus Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program, and did field work for Republican candidates in Delaware, sometimes wearing campaign buttons to class.

Mark Evan Halperin (born January 11, 1965) is the senior political analyst for Time magazine, Time.com, and MSNBC and serves as a board member on the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. He is the co-author (with John Heilemann) of Game Change.

Mark Halperin is the son of Morton Halperin and Ina Young. He has two brothers, David and Gary. He was born in Bethesda, Maryland, or Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Bethesda, where he attended Walt Whitman High School. Halperin received his college degree from Harvard University in 1987.

In 1988 Halperin started out as a desk assistant for ABC News and a researcher for World News Tonight. He then worked in the investigative unit of World News Tonight and as a general assignment reporter in Washington. In 1992 he worked full time as an off-air producer covering Bill Clinton. In 1994 Halperin became a producer with ABC's special events unit in New York and later an editorial producer.

In 1997 he was named the political director for ABC News. As director, Halperin appeared frequently as a correspondent and political analyst for ABC News television and radio programs. He also founded and edited The Note, which appears daily on ABCNews.com. In October 2006, Halperin, along with John F. Harris, released their book, The Way to Win: Clinton, Bush, Rove, and How to Take the White House in 2008 (ISBN 1-4000-6447-3).

Sarah Louise Palin ⁱ/ˈpeɪlɨn/ (née Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency. Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two million copies. Since January 2010, she has provided political commentary for Fox News, and hosted a television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska. Five million viewers tuned in for the first episode, a record for The Learning Channel.

She was elected to Wasilla City Council in 1992 and became mayor of Wasilla in 1996. In 2003, after an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, she was appointed Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, responsible for overseeing the state's oil and gas fields for safety and efficiency. The youngest person and first woman to be elected Governor of Alaska, Palin held the office from December 2006 until her resignation in July 2009. She has since endorsed and campaigned for the Tea Party movement, as well as several candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. From the time of her Vice Presidential nomination in 2008, Palin was considered a potential candidate for the 2012 presidential election until she announced in October 2011 that she would not run.

Julianne Moore (born Julie Anne Smith on December 3, 1960) is a British-American actress and a children's book author. She has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Moore began her acting career in 1983 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the soap opera As the World Turns, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. She began to appear in supporting roles in films during the early 1990s, in films such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The Fugitive. Her performance in Short Cuts (1993) won her and the rest of the cast a Golden Globe for their ensemble performance, and her performance in Boogie Nights (1997) brought her widespread attention and nominations for several major acting awards.

Her success continued with films such as The Big Lebowski (1998), The End of the Affair (1999) and Magnolia (1999). She received particular acclaim for her portrayal of a betrayed wife in Far from Heaven (2002), winning several critic awards as best actress of the year, in addition to several other nominations, including the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award. The same year, she was also nominated for several awards as best supporting actress for her work in The Hours. In 2010, Moore starred in the comedy drama The Kids Are All Right, for which she received a Golden Globe and BAFTA nomination.