Mark Halperin and John Heilemann Rock Political World With 2008 Campaign Tell-All "Game Change"

The authors of the book Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, thanked Imus for violating the terms of a non-disclosure agreement by talking about their book on the air last week.

"You said it was a 450-page version of Page Six, which initially kind of bothered us," said Halperin, a reporter for TIME Magazine and Imus in the Morning regular. "But we realize...coming from you, that's the highest praise imaginable."

And pretty accurate praise, too. Having devoured every single word of this very intense behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 Presidential campaign, Imus wondered why Halperin and Heilemann devised such specific standards for using quotation marks, or not.

"There's a lot of sloppiness in these books," said Heilemann, the national political correspondent for New York Magazine, about political tell-alls. "People put things in quotation marks all the time that they've heard second- or third-hand."

In Game Change, anything with quotation marks around it came directly from the person who said the quote, or someone who heard it directly, Heilemann explained. Anything that did not meet this standard is paraphrased, though still multiply sourced — like President Bill Clinton telling the late Senator Ted Kennedy that a few years ago, a guy like Barack Obama would have been getting them coffee.

"As our sources tried to remember what was said, they didn't agree on the exact language," Halperin said about Clinton's statement. "They agreed on the gist precisely."

Halperin and Heilemann noted that all of their sources are people they have known for a long time. But Imus wondered how even the most attentive campaign staffer could retain such specific recollections from 2008.

"We went back to people multiple times, some people more than half a dozen times," said Halperin. They also interviewed people immediately after the party nominations battles ended, and directly following the general election.

"A lot of this stuff in the book would have otherwise been lost to history," he added.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quoted in Game Change as saying then-candidate Obama's light skin and lack of "Negro dialect" would help get him elected. Reid, who has since apologized to Obama, claimed he thought the remarks were made off-the-record, which Heilemann believes might be worse.

"The fact that he thought it wasn't going to be used, in some ways, would be more damning," he said.

Game Change includes two revelations about Sarah Palin that Halperin said they worked diligently to obtain. First, the vetting done by Senator John McCain's campaign staff on Palin was infinitesimal, turned around in just 40 hours. Second, they learned that Palin experienced "funks," appearing almost "catatonic" for periods of time.

As for what surprised the two men during their work on Game Change, Halperin noted the extent to which Democrats like Reid and Senator Chuck Schumer wanted to block Hillary Clinton from getting the nomination.

She had not been, as was widely assumed, the "establishment candidate," Halperin said. Many powerful Democrats had wanted to stop the Clintons — not only because Hillary was a polarizing figure, but because Bill's personal life could be problematic.

"A lot of people, including former Clinton cabinet members and top advisors to the Clintons, had the same worry," said Halperin.

Other seamy revelations: a delusional John Edwards thought he stood a chance of becoming Obama's Attorney General, and Rudy Giuliani's wife had once worked for a pharmaceutical company that tested its products on — and in most cases killed — puppies.

"So you're suggesting that Rudolph Giuliani's wife is, essentially, Michael Vick with a dress on?" Imus asked. Halperin said only that Judith Giuliani had been "uncooperative" in disclosing certain facts during the campaign.

Overall, Obama was a lucky guy. "He had two opponents" — Clinton and McCain — "who did not step up and match his operation," said Halperin.

Calling Game Change a love-letter to the Obamas, Imus had one final question for his guests: "When do you get to stay in the Lincoln bedroom?"

-Julie Kanfer