[applause] a number of you know me from previous years. Its hi pleasure to be here to welcome its my pleasure to be here to welcome you and on behalf of Miamidade College, the college that really puts forth maximum effort in terms of solen b tiers volunteers from all its constituents, students, faculty and staff to make this book fair happen as it does every single year. And for the past 30 years. Id like to thank our sponsors, there are many of them, but in particular o. H. Aryan know and American Airlines for their sport. Id also like to thank our friends, many of whom are seated right here in front. Thank you so much for all of your support this year and for the past years that this fair has been made possible in part because of your generosity. The end of the session, as you know, the authors will be signing their books. Theyll be autographing on this floor on the other side of the elevator so you can proceed to that end, and you will also have an opportunity to ask questions after the authors have completed their presentations. So wed like to keep this fair be going for 30 more years, dont we . [applause] so lets do it together, and instead of asking you to turn off your cell phones, what id like you to do if you have not already done so this weekend is to take out your cell phones and text mbfi to donate to Miami Book Fair international if youre so inclined. Doe that it to 41444. Thank you donate to 41444. Thank you so much. Please consider donating 30 in support of the 30 years the book fair has been in existence making culture happen here in our community. Its now my pleasure to introduce dr. J. P. Austin, a local physician, and he will make the formal introduction of our authors. Thank you. [applause] good morning. Its an honor and privilege for me to introduce Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the authors of double down game change 2012. Im a political junkie. I mean, i do medicine sometimes on the side, i think. [laughter] but this second book of what i think of now as a franchise really is really inside baseball at its best. The original game change, i think, was the most insightful book of the 2008 cycle. And double down does the same for 2012. I think its a home run. It takes you into the weeds. It brings depth and background to the events that you saw in the [inaudible] its a book full of of details, juicy tidbits, insight and, yes, even some gossip. When the democratic operative told cnn that ann romney was, quote never worked a day in her life, end of quote concern you guys remember that you guys remember that the romney team wasted no time in saying how appalled they were. But if you read the book, youll find out that the romneys were actually very happy that this happened and delighted because they thought it was a real huge political gaffe. President obama and his team, did they consider dropping Vice President biden . Well, read the book and see how far that discussion went. [laughter] what was behind the Clint Eastwood disaster at the Republican National convention . [laughter] you have this older man on stage in prime time without a script. What can possibly go wrong . [laughter] well, what was going on in the background you have to read the book to find out. [laughter] you know, i asked John Heilemann backstage, you know, how do you get people to talk . I mean, its amazing as you ive read both books, and my wife whos in the front here has read the books as well can how do you get people to say these things . Its amazing to me. But amazing book. I hope, you know, you guys are here, obviously, youre going to want to read it or have read it. Ladies and gentlemen, its my pleasure, really a privilege to introduce Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. [applause] jp, thank you for that gracious and kind introduction. You read it just like we wrote it, so we appreciate that. [laughter] we are gratified and excited and thrilled to be here in miami. Weve been on tour for the past two and a half week weeks and weve been in a lot of different cities, and we can say without any equivocation that this is absolutely the favorite place weve been. We love miami, and were happy to be here. [applause] i promise you, i have not said that in any other city weve been to. Thats the first time ive said it. [laughter] this is obviously an august forum and a great event that happens every year. Being invited here is one of the most great honors that weve experienced. The only thing that compares in the last, since this book double down has been published has been the fact that weve just received the endorsement of the north korean government. [laughter] and youre laughing, you think i made that up, thats not a joke, its true. A couple days ago a strange, i got a strange google alert on my phone that said something about north korea and double down, so, of course, i looked. And the headline of the Washington Post article said north korea endorses double down as proof that, quote the u. S. Is the root cause of all sorts of evils. [laughter] now, as an author, theres Nothing Better than a blurb from the north korean state news agency, and in truth there really is one book club more powerful than oprahs, and thats the kim jong un [laughter] we love to take questions from the audience, so im going to talk very briefly, hand over to mark, and then well get to your questions and comments and address whatever youd like to hear us talk about. We wrote a book, as jp mentioned, four years ago or three years ago called game change. Some of you may have read that book or seen the hbo movie. [applause] if you preferred the movie to the book, just keep it to yourself. [laughter] much as we love that movie, the book was our baby. This, in this book we tried to do roughly the same thing that we did in the last book which is really just to write about the high human drama of running for president and the people who put themselves forward in this extraordinary american spectacle, one of the great competitions in any sphere of life in our country or any other. Marks going to talk more about how we go about doing these books, but we did set ourselves a little bit of a high bar in the fact that the first book our subtitle referred to 2008 as the race of a lifetime. So, you know, you head into 2012 and people ask, well, how are yo probably going how are you possibly going to top the race of a lifetime . Hillary clinton and barack obama competing to become the first woman or africanamerican to be nominated by a party. We would often say theres not going to be as much drama in 2012. First of all, there was. President obama himself told his aides on Election Night that he felt this election was more consequential than the 2008 election. Back in 2008 people were voting on a hope and on a dream and on a kind of the historic promise of his election. And in 2012 theyd be voting on his record, and theyd be either vindicating or rejecting what hed done and giving him a mandate to do more. He also felt that he had done a lot over the course of his first three years, whether you like the things hed done or not, whether it was passing Health Care Reform, reregulating wall street, passing a huge stimulus, those were big things he did, and we held that if the republicans won in 2012, they would roll back and undo all his pleasurements accomplishments. So he thought the stakes in this election were much higher. A lot of republicans in 2008 were disspiritted, and by the time you got to the end of 2008, there was not much drama or suspense around who was going to win that election especially after the wall street crisis in the fall of 2008. In this election republicans were really energized, and today thought defeating president obama was the most important thing to save the country. So you had two energized sides playing for high stakes, so there was a fair amount of drama inherent in that. There was also a fair amount of the other kind of narrative in this election. There was a lot of comedy in this election. [laughter] certainly on the republicans side there was some comedy. You will all remember herman cain talking about whos becky . Michele bachmann confusing the hometown of john wayne and serial killer john wayne gacy. [laughter] those were, you know, kind of funny moments. Newt gingrich, a southerner, of course, finishing his epic political career by taking a tour of americas zoos and being bit been by a penguin. [laughter] not necessarily the most wonderful way to end his career. And, of course, even the candidates that were not inherently that funny, a lot of people dont think of mitt romney as a funny guy or rick santorum, but we report in the book about john mccain who is often a funny guy coming to his decision about who he was going to enforce and saying to governor romney that he had made his decision at that point, it was between mitt romney and rick santorum, he felt like the republican nomination had come down to the dog on roof guy. [laughter] so there was some humor there. Im going to spend the last couple minutes that i have left, im going to tell you a little bit about one story from the book that has both drama and comedy and consequence and profanity which, of course, as you can imagine involves the clintons. [laughter] we write we wrote a lot in 2008 about bill clinton and and barack obama and their complicated relationship. In this book theres a lot of double down one of the big story arcs is the relationship between bill clinton and barack obama. And the first book in some ways was the love story of barack and hillary. This book is in some ways an even more unlikely love story of barack and bill. And it starts after three years in which the two guys really didnt talk very much, and president obama didnt really want to hear from president clinton. President clinton wanted to talk, as he often does [laughter] but they didnt really have much collaboration or discussion until the fall of 2011 when president obamas, his term was at its kind of low ebb politically to that point. His Approval Ratings were down around 40 after the republican debt ceiling fight. He was seen as weak by democrats, by republicans. Twothirds of the country thought the country was on the wrong track. He looked vulnerable, and in his state of desperation, he and his team did something they thought they would never have to do which is they started courting bill clinton, they start thed a courtship. And that began, as they often do, on the golf course. They went to play golf at Andrews Air Force base. Now, president obama has a very obama attitude towards golf. Im president of the United States, i want to get up and down, play the game, get back to work. Two and a half hours at the most, maybe three if im really not playing well, but thats it. President clinton has a different attitude towards golf, hes a retiree, so hes got a more lose yourly pace, and he famously taked a lot of mulligans and thinks the golf course is a place to expound and preach and joke and tell knock knock jokes, all kinds of things. And this golf round did not go particularly well, and they did not finish 18 holes. President obama said i like him fine, but in doses. [laughter] that was not a particularly propitious start to the romance. But over the course of the next few months, the guys got closer and closer together. President obama got to see president clinton speaking about him at fund be raisers where he spoke with passion and eloquence, and ultimately, president obama decided, you know, that he would give one of the three nights of his convention as you all remember to president clinton. That night, first night was Michelle Obamas night, the last night was obamas night. The middle night should have been joe bidens night, but instead, president obama decided to give president clinton the chance to get up there and place Barack Obamas name in nominationing and then really make the case for Barack Obamas term and the case against the republicans which president clinton did extraordinarily. And it was a big moment for president clinton because after 2008, a lot of people thought he had lost a step. Maybe he couldnt go out there and throw the high, hard one. He wanted to show he still had his fastball, and he did show that that night in charlotte. A very consequential speech as well as a riveting one. President clinton showed he had his president ial skills, and he also showed he had the skills of punditry. You know, by the end of the campaign, president obama and president clinton when superstorm san key was bearing sandy was bearing down on new york city, president clinton and president obama were here about to do a joint event together, and president obama decided he had to go back to washington because of the storm and things were getting serious. And they were at a hotel here in florida, and president clinton said you go back and be president , ill pick up the slack. Theres been some rockingest in the last few days. President clinton made it, that was not helpful about the Affordable Care act. People wondered on getting maybe dicey again but then we saw last week president obama getting president clinton the medal of freedom. When he gave him the medal of freedom referring, said thank you for all of you guys youve given me oath on and off the golf course. [laughter] that lightness is there. Ill finish by saying president clinton, i said he was a great pundit. When we think about 2012 would like to think to try to see the world through president clintons eyes. He was asked in such a number after the 47 tape came out and president governor romney was struggling, one of his friends and what you think of governor romney . President clinton said i think hes a nice guy buddies in the wrong line of work. [laughter] he said and he should not be speaking to people in public. [laughter] similar conversations where president lives and what you think about president obama . Reflecting on how the great gift governor romney has given to present obama. Clinton said that he was kind of there are no children in right now but i will give it to you straight to present an city the president obama was like you and the dog with two decks. [laughter] which there is a thing that bill clinton thinks is the luckiest thing you can be. [laughter] and i can say a lot of times i have to figure what it is about being a to dick doc. Only bill clinton knows. Im going to stop with that me because i always youre a dog with two penises. Animal genitalia is my specialty. [laughter] welcome, mark. [applause] thank you all. Were both really happy to be your at the Miami Book Fair. Ive been you here a few times. The cspan2 cameras are here and i knew that john was by going to end with a story but ive spent most of my morning and tuesday what brian lambs reaction going to be how we are helping to program the channel. Im going to talk for a little bit because the likely time for q a, and this was we concern we want everyone to start the question. Nothing is off limits. You can ask about the book or journalism or anything you want. You can ask about the details of the obligation of the Presence Health care law or what we learn and reporting about the details of the clintonclinton s marriage, whichever interests you more. Alternate ask is you do all your questions in the form of true or false. [laughter] if you could could defined in that way, its a little faster. Im going to talk about how we do these books. In terms of the craft and the process. I do want to do one quick housekeeping thing before them. I want to get a sense of make up of the audience. Of going to ask you a couple questions, ask you to go by share of hands, you can close your eyes as you vote. Raise your hand if you voted for president obama in the last election and. Okay. And ration and 80 voted for governor romney in the last election. 123, four, five. All right. I need to congratulate you all about the standards of most groups. Youre a very Diverse Group of people. I think thats great. If you need help getting out afterwards, let me know. Come back stage. Nice that youre all interested in politics. Second question i just want to get a sense of the book. How many of you have not read again yet . Regime. How many have read it . Not very many. Moment i talked for about about whats in the book because so few of you have read it there i dont want to give away the ending. Mike im just going to talk more about the process than whats in it. We had as john said a great challenge in doing a second book because of so many elements of the first book that were pretty compelling. We had great characters to write about. Our joke was if you got a campaign where Rudy Giuliani is the most interesting candidate you know youve got a group of interesting people to write about. You have the john and elizabeth edwards, john mccain, sarah palin. This time there some Different Group but there some characters who carry over and we like that continuity. What we tried to do is to write about not politics the way a lot of people write about politics. Polls and focus groups and details of every primary and caucus by the relationships between people and trying to write as much as we can with empathy through the eyes of the candidates and their spouses and families as they go through this extraordinary process. John makin one of the key relationships is between president clinton and president obama but there are lots of others. Chris christie and mitt romney is a pretty important relationship. The relationship between Hillary Clinton and joe biden is a really important one, and they were competitors in 2008 when joe biden ran for president and then the white house, worked very close with Foreign Policy but a lot of speculation about whether they might run against each other in 2016. The ivory coast personally. Weve written about that in both books. One example, they say i love you to each other. Of Something Like even the cheney census dont do these days. [laughter] shows you how close they are and to try to tease out again just a people relate to each other because they are human beings. We try to write for insiders as well as for general audience. We hear a lot