McCain camp trying to scapegoat Palin

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/15073.html


McCain camp trying to scapegoat Palin
By ROGER SIMON | 10/30/08 4:43 AM EDT


John McCain's campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.

And it has decided on Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”

Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?

Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”

Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?

And if you are a 72-year-old presidential candidate, wouldn’t you expect that your running mate’s fitness for high office would come under a little extra scrutiny? And, therefore, wouldn’t you make your selection with care? (To say nothing about caring about the future of the nation?)

McCain didn’t seem to care that much. McCain admitted recently on national TV that he “didn’t know her well at all” before he chose Palin.

But why not? Why didn’t he get to know her better before he made his choice?

It’s not like he was rushed. McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination in early March. He didn’t announce his choice for a running mate until late August.

Wasn’t that enough time for McCain to get to know Palin? Wasn’t that enough time for his crackerjack “vetters” to investigate Palin’s strengths and weaknesses, check through records and published accounts, talk to a few people, and learn that she was not only a diva but a whack job diva?

But McCain picked her anyway. He wanted to close the “enthusiasm gap” between himself and Barack Obama. He wanted to inject a little adrenaline into the Republican National Convention. He wanted to goose up the Republican base.

And so he chose Palin. Is she really a diva and a whack job? Could be. There are quite a few in politics. (And a few in journalism, too, though in journalism they are called “columnists.”)

As proof that she is, McCain aides now say Palin is “going rogue” and straying from their script. Wow. What a condemnation. McCain sticks to the script. How well is he doing?

In truth, Palin’s real problem is not her personality or whether she takes orders well. Her real problem is that neither she nor McCain can make a credible case that Palin is ready to assume the presidency should she need to.

And that undercuts McCain’s entire campaign.

This was the deal McCain made with the devil. In exchange for energizing his base by picking Palin, he surrendered his chief selling point: that he was better prepared to run the nation in time of crisis, whether it be economic, an attack by terrorists or, as he has been talking about in recent days, fending off a nuclear war.

“The next president won’t have time to get used to the office,” McCain told a crowd in Miami on Wednesday. “I’ve been tested, my friends, I’ve been tested.”

But has Sarah Palin?

I don’t believe running mates win or lose elections, though some believe they can be a drag on the ticket. Lee Atwater, who was George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager in 1988, told me that Dan Quayle cost the ticket 2 to 3 percentage points. But Bush won the election by 7.8 percentage points.

So, in Atwater’s opinion, Bush survived his bad choice by winning the election on his own.


By ROGER SIMON | 10/30/08 4:43 AM EDT

McCain could do the same thing. But his campaign’s bad decisions have not stopped with Sarah Palin. It has made a series of questionable calls, including making Joe the Plumber the embodiment of the campaign.

Are voters really expected to warmly embrace an (unlicensed) plumber who owes back taxes and complains about the possibility of making a quarter million dollars a year?

And did McCain’s aides really believe so little in John McCain’s own likability that they thought Joe the Plumber would be more likable?

Apparently so. Which is sad.

We in the press make too much of running mates and staff and talking points and all the rest of the hubbub that accompanies a campaign.

In the end, it comes down to two candidates slugging it out.

Either McCain pulls off a victory in the last round or he doesn’t.

And if he doesn’t, he has nobody to blame but himself.

Bighead wrote:

Are voters really expected to warmly embrace an (unlicensed) plumber who owes back taxes and complains about the possibility of making a quarter million dollars a year?

When you use the government to take what people have produced, that's thug behavior. When you force the long arm of government into people's bank accounts, that's not charity. If there's anybody who's selfish in this race, it's the messiah.

Quote :

When you use the government to take what people have produced, that's thug behavior.

You mean like when money is taken via taxes and national debt (i.e. future taxes) and redistributed to the military-industrial complex?

Quote :

When you force the long arm of government into people's bank accounts, that's not charity.

So I gather that you're not a fan of Bush's massive expansion of medicare- due to be bankrupt in a couple decades or less.

Quote :

If there's anybody who's selfish in this race, it's the messiah.

I dunno. To me, "selfish" would describe people who have no problem with unprecedented expansion of government, record deficit spending, trampling of our most basic constitutional rights, and a trillion dollar (and 600k+ body-count) war based on false premises... but scream bloody murder when they think that some poor slob (or their dirty kid) might get something for free.

Bighead wrote:

So I gather that you're not a fan of Bush's massive expansion of medicare- due to be bankrupt in a couple decades or less.

You would be correct in that assumption.

Bighead wrote:

trampling of our most basic constitutional rights

The Dems are already talking about convening a constitutional convention if they gain a super-majority in Congress. You can bet that the Second Amendment would be at the top of their hit list.

Quote :

The Dems are already talking about convening a constitutional convention if they gain a super-majority in Congress. You can bet that the Second Amendment would be at the top of their hit list.

And my alternative is to vote for a guy who'd wipe his ass with the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th amendments.

I think #3 is safe at the moment.

But back to the socialism thing... as it's the final straw that the GOP is grasping. Obama is a socialist- I won't deny that. But I just can't understand why you think that's worse than spending unimaginable amounts of money on an idiotic war. Money is wasted either way... 'cept one helps some people. The other kills LOTS of people.

And let's not forget that the U.S. military IS a socialist institution.

As are our police departments

and publik skools

and fire departments

and medicare

and social security

and assorted farm subsidies

including crop insurance subsidies

let's not forget utilities all over the country

and VA hospitals



Fact is, the U.S. IS a socialist country, and has been for a long, long time. We just don't call it that. I'm not particularly happy about it... but that's life.

Whether or not you like the war is irrelevant. The fact is that we're already there, and neither McCain or the messiah will be pulling the troops out any time soon. The messiah has backed off significantly from his initial position of getting them all out immediately. Now he says 2010. Maybe. Same as the current estimates by the Bush advisors.

As for your examples of socialism, many of them are. The military is not. One of the few functions of the federal government that is expressly addressed in the constitution is to provide for the common defense of the states.

Also, fire departments and police departments are functions of local governments, not federal. Public schools were originally controlled locally, but the control has been seized by the state and federal governments in the name of "fairness."

Utilities are owned by the local governments (as are the Green Bay Packers) and the citizen-owners, who vote on whether to continue ownership or privatize the utilities, benefit when they show a profit. At least theoretically.

As for the rest, you are correct. Ross Perot said that the choice between GHW Bush and Clinton wasn't a choice of socialism vs. capitalism, it was a choice of how quickly the country wanted to slip further into socialism. Guess that could apply to every election.