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.

[1] Released on January 11, 2010,[2] it was also published in the United Kingdom under the title Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House.

Among them were that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and New York Senator Chuck Schumer had privately urged Barack Obama to run for president in the fall of 2006, in hopes that it would energize the Democratic base and improve the party's chances of winning the presidency.

The book also alleges that Hillary Clinton wanted to make a bigger issue out of Obama's drug use, but was dissuaded by certain members of her staff.

"[6] Heilemann and Halperin wrote in Game Change that Clinton had considered entering the 2004 presidential race, and that polls indicated her odds were encouraging.

[6] Game Change also included details of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, and his handling of it before it was made public.

According to the book, Reid said he believed Obama could become the country's first black president because he was "light-skinned" and had "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one".

[8][9][10] National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Cornyn, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl called on Reid to step down as majority leader for his remarks.

[13] Al Sharpton condemned Clinton's alleged remark, saying, "I think that's far more disturbing [than Senator Reid's comments] because this is someone seeking to stop Mr. Obama's campaign...

"[15] Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times wrote that the authors of Game Change "serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations and allegations — some that are based on impressive legwork and access, some that simply crystallize rumors and whispers from the campaign trail, and some that are hard to verify independently as more than spin or speculation on the part of unnamed sources.

[5][16] The authors defended themselves against such criticism, with Halperin saying they maintained "an incredibly high standard" and that they left material out if it was not verifiable or relevant, and Heilemann saying "We tried to tell a story of the intimate reality of what it's like to run for president.