The McCain (and Palin) Campaign Apparently Isn't Over

I don't understand the finger-pointing.
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It's not like the question" Was Palin a fresh talent whose debut was mishandled by self-serving campaign insiders, or an eccentric “diva” who had no business on the national stage?" doesn't have an objective discernable answer. Palin's selection was the turning point that revealed that McCain in fact had zero respect for the country or for the potential fallout of his actions.
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As for Randy Scheunemann, one need only read this link to get a full measure of his credibility and judgment of character: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june03/chalabi_05-07-03.html
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Stever Schmidt may indeed be the source attacking Palin. That only speaks to his basic sanity.

Two thoughts:
1. It is simply amazing that ANYONE can consider this empty head seriously for president. But then again...
2. Apparently the Republicans liked Bushonion idiocy, or how could they consider Palin seriously? Hopefully a responsible press will help expose this craziness.

If by "interesting" you mean completely frakking terrifying, then, yes, I agree. Thanks for the links.

Agree that the Martin piece had more news, at least for those of us who have followed Palin closely. Krystol and Scheunemann are exemplars - with Palin - of that old saw "birds of a feather flock together."
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That Palin herself thought in any place in her mind that she could be President is truly frightening. It is delusional. But then, this is someone who acknowledged that she really didn't know what the job of vice-president entailed, so there's no reason to think she knows what the presidency involves, either.
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I wonder if John McCain will ever speak about the moment he realized that he was asking the country to jeopardize our future by electing him president. I suppose he will eternally figure it's a matter of honor to avoid criticizing Sarah since he got her into this.
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(Andrew has let the bee out of his bonnet again over Palin's pregnancy, which I agree was bizarre to the point of disturbing.)
Both articles were great fun to read.

I read the VF article yesterday and thought at the time a lot of the stuff in it had to be BS. But the Politico follow up certainly confirms that McCain's campaign was totally dsyfunctional and McCain was not in charge of what was going on. Can anyone imagine what a McCain administration would have been like?

gunny - since the campaign I've regularly followed mudflats.com, an excellent Alaska blog. Most of the stuff in the VF article was reported contemporaneously, and it's clear from the day-to-day Alaska stories that it's all too true.

Billy Kristol had an unethical relationship with the McCain campaign. Well unethical any where except inside the beltway. He was way more involved than just a journal being leaked to. With the made up controversy surrounding the Huffington Post blogger getting to ask a question in the briefing room, I notice the villagers don't seem to have a problem with Billy's actions here. The villagers just seem to accept that whatever Billy did was perfectly acceptable.
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I would ask why this is. But, I know I will never get an answer.

[...] speaking of Sarah… Vanity Fair has a very interesting article about her run for VP.  Some McCain staffers said some not-very-nice [...]

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Gysgt213, I see your point. On the other hand, I'm perfectly happy to see the goopers continue to take Kristol's advice seriously.
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I wouldn't call the Purdum story even a little bit "dishy." Palin's significance is that her nomination was the stupidest, most reckless, irresponsible and flat-out insane political decision since Caligula appointed his horse to the Senate. That's a big deal, and we would do well to understand how and why the media and his handlers tried so hard to cover up McCain's crackpottery. McCain isn't just a naked emperor -- he's a naked emperor covered in his own feces and howling at the moon. And Palin's personality may be even sicker than his. The pathology of American politics ain't pretty, and investigating it ain't dishy.

As Sen. John Blutarsky wisely observed in his undergraduate days,
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FOOD FIGHT!
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Lesson for Democrats, particularly Senate Democrats: if your sole concern is self-aggrandizement you will neither accomplish anything nor look good.

"If John McCain's team was like this on the campaign, it's interesting to imagine what a McCain White House would have been like."
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It probably wouldn't have a slimeball like Eric Holder as AG, nor would it have a tax cheat as Treasury Secretary. Nor would it have a VP who inflates his academic record while telling others he's more intelligent than they are. Finally, we wouldn't have a Secretary of State giving cover to a thug trying to undermine the rule of law in Honduras. And we probably wouldn't have a Chief of Staff who was a member of the board of directors of Freddie Mac while its accounting was, um, shall we say, creative.

Oh, and we probably wouldn't have a senior advisor who put lipstick ("urban health initiative") on the pig of thinly disguised patient-dumping. And we'd probably have a better press secretary.

So, you guys gonna troll rate me again?
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Any by the way, say what you guys want about Palin--she's not in Quayle territory like Slow Joe Biden.

The one good thing about McCain putting Palin on his ticket is that it is highly unlikely that we will ever actually face her being President or V.P. Sure the base adores her still. But if that were enough to get you into the White House then she would be there now. Dems and Independents were terrified of her during the campaign and nothing she has done since has helped to offset that image.
I could see Alaskans voting her into the Senate, but that is as close as she is likely to get to the White House.

So if Palin's excuse was postpartum depression, what was McCain's?
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Frankly, while Palin was obviously more ignorant than McCain she seemed way less erratic and emotionally volatile. The only way one can argue otherwise is by relying on accounts of off-the-record events, which are notoriously unreliable and of course there are so many other accounts that talk about McCain's emotional fragility. That particular criticism seems to be almost entirely reflective of sexism and in-fighting.
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Palin happens to be astonishingly ignorant, but I think the McCain campaign would have mismanaged her even if she had been as intelligent as say Romney or Jindal. (I'm just comparing her to her actual Republican competition, not Democratic candidates like Obama and HRC who actually knew what they were talking about.) They treated her like a Barbie doll with the clothes, the way they picked her in the first place (creating a Time cover with her picture on it) and their obvious disregard for her intellectual qualifications. And then when they started to hate her they treated her like an out of control hormonal Barbie doll and attributing absurd comments to her like the Africa thing and refusing to do the campaign event with the pro-choice politicians.
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I read the Runner's World interview with Palin and I would be shocked if she won less than 20% of the vote in a Republican primary, especially since the GOP base is becoming even more crazy as more rational people leave it. But perhaps McCain accidentally saved his party by nominating her, because if she hadn't run in 08 she probably would have been a stronger candidate in 2012.

"I would ask why this is. But, I know I will never get an answer."
You know the answer perfectly well gunny - Kristol's an Insider. Once you're In, you're In, and nothing really can damage that (other than, maybe, posting on a DFH blog).
The wild flailing going on, with its frantic, screaming hair-pulling and eye-scratching, is just the norm for these guys. Palin's more than disturbing, and McCain recently spent a year showing that he has long since forfeited any grounds for respect by anyone not in his immediate family. Their surrogates' savaging of each other is more like a kindergarten brawl than anything else - we need something with meat. When's JNS coming out with her next sex-scandal story?

http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/argument.html

Oh, spobby;
We all have our problems, don't we? I struggle with Pompous Writing Syndrome, and you have an apparently incurable case of Trollspeak. Well, I'm glad to see that you have embraced your disability - wallow in it, man! We need more posts about Obama's birth certificate and his connection to the secret government demolition unit that took down the WTC, all of the recent passenger jets and the I35 bridge in Minn. Do your part for trolldom, spob, old boy!

"Palin happens to be astonishingly ignorant, but I think the McCain campaign would have mismanaged her even if she had been as intelligent as say Romney or Jindal."
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As opposed to Joe "I'm Smarter than You" Biden or Barack "57 States" Obama?

Palin was such a left field choice of vice-president and a poor one at that. There was quite a few Republicans, myself included, who found Palin to be a huge mistake and one of the main factors that cost McCain the Presidency.
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I for one was not keen on McCain to begin with but at the time was less fond of Obama.
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However, a campaign is no litmus test for how an administration. With that said it certainly helps to have the strong support during the campaign to carry through into the presidency.
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@spob: "member of the board of directors of Freddie Mac while its accounting was, um, shall we say, creative." Hilarious, made me chuckle. Whatever McCain's administration would have been is all guessing, conjecture and hearsay. There is no way to really say what it would have been.

mrtoads, you struggle with a common affliction--douchebaggery--it's an affliction that is an epidemic in here

"There was quite a few Republicans, myself included, who found Palin to be a huge mistake and one of the main factors that cost McCain the Presidency."
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Palin wasn't the problem.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/07/01/who-railroaded-the-amtrak-inspector-general/
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I doubt we'd see this in a McCain Administration.

Spob, people consider you a troll because you consider political discussions to be a game. "Your side" takes a position, regardless of how indefensible, and you proceed to unleash a torrent of specious arguments simply because it serves a partisan agenda.
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If you would pause for a moment, you might take note that nobody here is a rubber stamp defender of Obama or Congressional Democrats.
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Palin? Palin?!? I'm sorry, but that pick was indefensible. I'm sure if you asked any Democrats here, they would be more than happy to discuss the many campaign blunders made by Mondale, Dukakis, Gore or Kerry. I would never deny a political mistake simply because it was made by a Democrat. Anyone who is incapable of admitting or recognizing that picking Palin was a hideous campaign mistake by McCain has zero credibility.