McCain Defends Staffers From Palin

'I'm not going to watch it,' says Arizona senator

(NEWSER) - Maybe John McCain also wanted Brad Pitt to play him , but he's certainly no fan of Game Change, deriding the movie based on his 2008 presidential campaign to Fox News Sunday as "based on a book that's completely biased and with unattributed quotes. I'm not going to watch it." Politico notes that a main beef appears to be his potty-mouthed portrayal, by actor Ed Harris: "I don’t use coarse language very often. I have a larger vocabulary than that," he says. More»

And Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin is still pretty scary: reactions

(NEWSER) - If you thought Julianne Moore's Sarah Palin was terrifying in the first Game Change teaser , wait until you see her in the full trailer, where she utters lines such as, "We have to win this thing. I so don’t want to go back to Alaska." Watch below, then read on for some reactions:

• This will clearly be "a Frankenstein-esque story about McCain’s staffers coming to regret the choice they made in bringing a little-known governor into the limelight," writes Jon Bershad at Mediaite . "The full trailer ... gives us even more famous actors getting their turn to stare in horror at the 'monster' they’ve created."

HBO debuts first teaser

(NEWSER) - For all of you who have spent the past nine months wondering how Julianne Moore’s Sarah Palin impersonation will stack up against Tina Fey’s , you finally have your answer. HBO debuted its first teaser trailer for Game Change, the film due in March that's based on the Mark Halperin-John Heilemann book about the 2008 presidential election. Neither Ed Harris as John McCain nor Woody Harrelson as top adviser Steve Schmidt sound much like their real-life counterparts, notes David Jackson in USA Today , but Moore’s Palin is spot-on: Numerous publications including People , New York , the Huffington Post , and Jezebel are fairly impressed. More»

2008 running mate brought in to counter Hayworth

(NEWSER) - With JD Hayworth breathing down his neck, John McCain is looking for help in the Arizona primary race from a familiar campaigner: Sarah Palin. The former Alaska governor and Tea Party favorite will travel to Arizona next weekend to stump for her onetime running mate. The joint appearances will be their first since they conceded the 2008 election, notes the Arizona Daily Star . More»

Campaign strategist, authors discuss new book Game Change

(NEWSER) - When Sarah Palin memorably asked Joe Biden, “Can I call you Joe?” during the vice-presidential debate, it was a strategy—but not the strategy everyone assumed. During debate prep, Palin kept referring to Biden as “O’Biden,” campaign strategist Steve Schmidt tells CBS . “When you had gone through the Tina Fey parodies, you certainly cannot be in a position where you walk onto the stage and refer to him repeatedly on national television as 'Senator O'Biden,'" he told 60 Minutes last night. More»