As we anxiously ramp up to the 2024 presidential election, this past month alone has been one for the history books, to put it mildly, especially now that much of the focus has shifted down ticket to our candidates for Vice President.
On one side, there’s venture capitalist-turned-Ohio senator JD Vance, who was hand-selected to be Trump’s running mate, though the would-be MAGA golden boy can’t seem to stop putting his foot in his couch mouth since the RNC. Some folks are already writing the “elegy” for his short stint on the campaign trail.
And then there’s the Democrats, who have a new spring in their step ever since President Biden ended his bid for re-election, throwing his full support behind VP Kamala Harris. As she vets a number of swing-state politicians—who are largely older, white men—to find her Veep, it’s a little like watching a high-stakes version of The Golden Bachelorette play out in the public forum.
Related*
We now know waaaaay more about JD Vance’s search history than we ever wanted to
Vance, who turned his back on a transgender friend, has an apparent interest in women and dolphins.
Yes, these are unprecedented times… except they kind of aren’t! If you can remember back long, long ago to 2008, our country was similarly going through an election cycle with an outsized focus on potential VPs—namely former Alaska governor Sarah Palin—and our heads are still spinning to this day.
In fact, the story of Palin’s rollercoaster ride along the campaign trail was such a doozy that it was turned into a movie just a few short years later.
Director Jay Roach’s Game Change premiered on HBO on March 10, 2012, and it saw the great Julianne Moore don the half-hearted beehive and rimless glasses of the one-time vice-presidential hopeful. The film was a ratings success for the network and was favorably reviewed—it even won a number of Emmys!—but for a while there it seemed like no one really cared to re-watch this tour through recent history.
Well, given *motions around wildly* the current state of things, we found ourselves morbidly curious about revisiting Game Change in 2024: Was it as campy as we remember? Is Vance just Palin 2.0? Is there anything it can teach us about the current election? Did Moore deserve that Emmy? Did the game really change?
All will be revealed as Queerty takes a machine back to 2008—by way of 2012—to highlight some of the funniest, strangest, and most eerily prescient moments from Game Change:
War On Free Speech
This will bomb. It is old news in an election year and nobody cares.
zehfyrsez
Huh?
abfab
The pin up w h or e.
abfab
Speechfree is old news.
Cam
@War On Free Speech Same boring old right wing troll account, (Yawn)
still_onthemark
I watched it twice back in 2012, very entertaining movie, I’ll see it again! Btw, Steve Schmidt eventually gave up on the R party and became a hardcore Never Trumper.
abfab
What papers do you read, Sarah?