People looking forward HBO’s dramatization of the “Game Change,” the best-selling insider account of the 2008 presidential campaigns, shouldn’t expect to find much about the issues.

The book’s readers certainly didn’t. It contains nothing new or memorable about economic, social or foreign policy issues. It’s all about politics and personalities. If the HBO show doesn’t stray far from the book, it will concentrate on personal dramas.

During campaign seasons, we always hear a lot of chatter about “the issues” and “sticking to the issues” by reporters, pundits, politicians and even some voters. I advise against taking “issues” talk too seriously.

Consider what the book tells us about the role “issues” played in the various campaigns it covers. The two veteran political reporters who wrote it, John Heileman and Mark Halperin, claim their account is based on hundreds of interviews, and I see no reason to doubt them.

We read early on that Neera Tanden, Hillary Clinton’s policy director, was a “brilliant issues director with a degree from Yale Law School.”

So we read on, searching for evidence of Tanden’s brilliance and examples of her influence on the campaign. We learn that she regarded Mark Penn, the campaign’s chief strategist, as arrogant, amoral, untrustworthy and, possibly, a closet Republican. This may be true, but there’s nothing to be found about their disagreements about issues.

We find two quotes attributed to Her Brilliancy, both about Bill Clinton: “Who’s running this f***ing campaign” and “What’s he doing in South Carolina. Get him out.”

There you have it. If you doubt me, get the book from your library and check the index.

No mention is made of issues directors or policy wonks in any of the other campaigns. I’m sure they all had them; perhaps some of them were brilliant, maybe even Ivy Leaguers, but Heileman and Halperin didn’t think them worth mentioning.

I mean no criticism. They know their trade. Personality dominates campaign. Pollsters decide the issues that are discussed. Speech writers write speeches reflecting the issues identified by the polls. Specialists provide the witticisms needed to liven up the speech. Other specialists (such as Naomi Wolfe working for Al Gore in 2000) tell the candidates how to dress. Wonks polish up the sound bites.

Those are the realities of campaigning. Serious discussion of issues counts for little.

In 2010, Gov. Paul LePage’s campaign issues were Maine’s poor business climate, its burdensome taxes, cumbersome and obstructive regulations, expensive and dysfunctional welfare system, unfunded mandates, and its bloated and inefficient government.

Many of these problems had been discussed in the liberal Brookings Institution’s Charting Maine’s Future, which had been celebrated as a blueprint for the state by Gov. John Baldacci in 2006. I saw no reference to the Brookings’ report in 2010.

In other elections that year, all across the nation, political consultants were drawing large salaries to advise candidates to talk about jobs, jobs, jobs. Was anyone being paid to advise how to create jobs? I doubt it; at least, I saw no evidence of it.

Back in 1982, I chaired a New Jersey congressional campaign.

We received lots of advice from the Republican National Committee and even had a visit from Bill McInturff, who subsequently went on to co-found Public Opinion Strategies and get a good deal of media attention (Google and see for yourself). Policy solutions had no part of this advice.

The candidate was urged to convince the voters that he cared about them, and the method suggested was to show that he was just like them.

I’ve just finished reading the autobiography of the economist and columnist Thomas Sowell, who was urged to run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in California. Although reluctant, he consented to talk with a political pro.

Sowell asked the man how he thought he could better serve the public interest as a senator rather than as a writer. This was the answer: “If you are thinking about this from the standpoint of the public interest then you don’t belong in politics. You’ve got to want to want it so bad you can taste it.”

On another occasion, Sowell describes participating in a White House conference about education. One reporter reacted thus: “You’re not here to talk about education. You are here to help President Ford win his Republican nomination battle with Ronald Reagan.”

The fact that Sowell had studied and written about education at considerable length was irrelevant to the reporters. They hadn’t read his work and didn’t care about the pros and cons of policy proposals. They understood and cared about politics. The actual issues were beyond them.

Sowell hasn’t registered to vote for more than 30 years. He writes to advocate or criticize policies.

John Frary of Farmington is a former congressional candidate and retired history professor and a board member of Maine Taxpayers United. Email to [email protected]