Tweet Summary of Halperin/Heilemann Forum

Can you blog Tweets? I don’t know, but let’s give this a try. For those of you who couldn’t spend an hour and a half at the Halperin/Heilemann forum last night, here’s a minute-and-a-half tweet rundown….
Waiting for Halperin/Heilemann forum to start. Definitely not packed. Maybe people are over the 2008 gossip? What about midterm gossip?
Bill Purcell just said “Game Change” is a spicy smorgasbord. No one else seemed to think this was funny.
Halperin says if the 7th most interesting candidate in a race is Rudy Giuliani, you know it’s a good race.
flashback: remember “lipstick on a pig”?
moderator cuts to the chase quickly: should we trust your no-name sources? asks if they left anything out because it wasn’t well sourced
Heilemann says they paraphrased quotes to avoid nitpickers. But isn’t paraphrasing just as unfair sometimes?
Moderator Susan Gilligan: I’m not fazed by affairs. I mean, I lived in Europe. Big laughs. But John Edwards shocked her.
Heilemann: “John Edwards brought the crazy”
Heilemann: John Edwards got overtaken by his “ego monster.” Nice John Edwards went away.
“People are not any less interested in John Edwards than they are in Barack Obama at this point.” Uhh… no.
Moderator really really wants H and H to talk about Obama’s “self-doubt”
Obama aides were concerned in 07 that his heart wasn’t in it. They took him out and he asked if it was an intervention.
“McCain is at core a loner, a fighter pilot… It’s not until he’s at rock bottom that he’s suddenly happy again.”
“Sarah Palin.” Laughter… Halperin: “You know, there are some parts of the country where her name doesn’t elicit laughter.” More laughter.

Lieberman would have been both an unorthodox and an orthodox VP candidate. Hilarity.
Palin vetter just did some Lexis searches. “almost no background check.”
Halperin semi-justifies McCain’s choice by pointing to his “fighter pilot” mentality. Why can’t they just say “he’s a crazy man”?
McCain vetter to Palin: “Is your daughter going to get married?” Pause… “Is she going to get married tomorrow?”
Halperin: Obama too professorial. Me: Halperin too superficial.
Halperin: Obama doesn’t change course readily enough. In other words, he won’t stop pushing health care. Yeah, what’s wrong with that guy?
“To thine own self be true” is lesson from 2008. How poetic.
Also, “don’t look like Tina Fey.”
Uh oh… A Cambridgeite asking a question. Incomprehensible and disturbed.
Halperin: “I lost you when you mentioned Scott Brown. He’s so dreamy.”
Halperin: Obama should stop supporting TBTL orgs, and start worrying about the middle class. Right, the middle class loves depressions.
Reality check: Obama poll numbers have been at 50% for basically half a year.
Halperin shoots back to questioner: point out something gossipy from our book!
MH: People who say there’s gossip in the book should look up the definition. We just asked what happened.
JH: People are interested in “the human spectacle,” not the employer mandate.
Shorter Gilligan: Presidential contests are popularity contests. And we are the student newspaper editors.
Question: When do agreements with sources have to go out the window?
Halperin basically reiterates that you can’t get juicy stuff if you don’t promise anonymity.
Question from high school freshman: Why didn’t McCain give up when he wasn’t into it in 07?
JH: McCain never doubted he’d be a good president. Me: That makes one of us.
Furthermore, McCain just hated Obama. Thought he was green, all talk no walk, etc. “Personal animus drove him [McCain].”
Halperin jumps in to add McCain’s no quitter. Calls that admirable. What does he think of the personal animus? Not so admirable?
And that’s a wrap.
Photo credit: Harvard Institute of Politics