Inside Accounts Of McCain Camp Dysfunction Start Leaking
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, History, McCain, Palin
Yes, Sarah Palin was barely vetted.
Yes, it has been all tactics and never strategy.
And yes, it sounds a lot like the failed Hillary campaign.
Huff Post talks about a New York Times Magazine piece set to drop on Sunday:
The piece, written by Robert Draper and titled “The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of the Candidate,” breaks some new reportorial ground, including a growing weariness within a campaign that seems more interested in tactical victories and the next compelling narratives than an overarching strategy.Draper writes: “By October, the succession of backfiring narratives would compel some to reappraise not only McCain’s chances but also the decisions made by [Chief Strategist Steve] Schmidt, who only a short time ago was hailed as the savior who brought discipline and unrepentant toughness to a listing campaign.”
Having interviewed several of the Senator’s chief aides, Draper details the process by which McCain ultimately chose his running mate (New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was surprisingly high on the list). And the decision may have been even more impulsive than initially thought. Gov. Sarah Palin, who had never been on the VP shortlist, was advanced at the last minute by Schmidt and Rick Davis, and was picked after a chat with McCain at his ranch in Arizona.
By the way, I SERIOUSLY doubt that Bloomberg would have taken the job. But Lieberman? Without a doubt.
I’ll have more response when the piece is released this weekend, but in the meantime…doesn’t this confirm a lot of what many of us have been thinking?
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, History, McCain, Palin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:03 am
[...] Me. It’s always about me. As it should [...]
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
The way McCain has ran this campaign and the reactionary way he makes decisions indicates to me that he would be an awful, absolutely awful President. Perhaps even worse than W.
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The ironic thing is, I used to admire McCain. And if he’d picked Bloomberg (not Lieberman, though) I might at least have toyed with idea of voting for him. And although I probably still would have sided with Obama, I know a lot of Hillary Democrats who were just looking for an excuse to cast lots with McCain.
Palin basically sealed the deal — if not for me, than certainly for a whole mess of Hillary Democrats who would no sooner vote for a McCain-Palin ticket than they would vote for a McCain-al Sadr ticket.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:08 pm
[...] grip of a financial system meltdown and market panic during the last two months of the election. A poorly run McCain campaign did not help, but economic fear swamps all other considerations. Under this cloud the electorate [...]
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 am
It appears to me that in his VP pick, McCain was faced with a choice of trying to attract moderate, possibly financially conservative voters, or turning out the religious/socially conservative base. Obviously, with Palin, he chose the latter. Hindsight being 20-20, it’s easy to say now that it was a bonehead political move, but I think he rolled the dice and didn’t know just how incredibly dumbwitted Palin is. It was a move that revealed that he is willing to pander to the “agents of intolerance” wing of the party rather than stay true to his independent past. Given how the economy totally fell apart in September, I think it’s safe to say that if McCain had picked a VP to shore up his weaknesses on economic issues, he would still be ahead in the polls.