Internal Battles Divided McCain and Palin Camps
 

Seems as if, in only 48 hours, the knives have come out between the GOP.
I first heard of this on CNN which interviewed one of the writers on Newsweek's' story (which I think will be in next weeks issue).
Found it as well in New York Times.
"
PHOENIX — As a top adviser in Senator John McCain’s now-imploded campaign tells the story, it was bad enough that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska unwittingly scheduled, and then took, a prank telephone call from a Canadian comedian posing as the president of France. Far worse, the adviser said, she failed to inform her ticketmate about her rogue diplomacy."....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us...q=palin&st=cse

Hackers and Spending Sprees

Highlights from NEWSWEEK's special election project.

Besides going into the problems between Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain, this also goes into the reports that BOTH Sen. McCains' and Sen. Obamas' campaign computers were hacked into by "foreign governments".
http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/arc...gn_postmortem/

I think the so called sources should name themselves. If they are speaking the truth and arent ashamed why hide? Cowards & sore losers. Sore bickering wont help the republican party heal or rebuild/whatever.

I dont believe it. If it was true I think it was a mis-speak just like Obama misspoke when he said there were 57 states.

These must be the same 'sources' which have been saying that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent (rather than a country).

There's this belief in Presidential history that you can't accurately judge a President's administration for a number of years. I forget the exact number, but I think the point is to let history play out, then take an objective look (as much as possible) about that President's policies and how they shaped the future.

I tend to think the same of Presidential campaigns. The emotions are too raw right after the election, especially on the losing side. I would take anything that comes out with a grain of salt. In a few years, people will be better able to tell the story without most of the emotional baggage.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/in...lin-is-so-dumb...

I think you're right on both points.

I also think these anonymous McCain aides are cowards.

They had been setting her up as a scapegoat for a month and she even apologized if she lost McCain any votes. That seems as poorly crafted as a lot of things that happened during McCain's campaign. It's ridiculous how much the McCain campaign began to bail out of this election and allow Palin to get the majority of the attention. It's like they just gave up. I believe it was all so they can say she was "going rogue" or that her perceived stupidity was unbeknownst to McCain and his aides.

I've heard Palin called "diamond in the rough" and that she just needs some grooming. If that's the case, McCain people should've known that the fancy clothes and tutoring sessions were a total waste.

This all actually may be true, but I'm not sure it deserves that much derision - after all, Obama had effectively "won" months ago, and the McCain camp knew that before the last debate. In that regard, I don't blame the campaign for having other interests in mind, even if those interests were selfish or silly. The Newsweek series of articles is fascinating on that point . . .

. . . and on this one - it turns out, the McCain camp had the EXACT reaction we did on GC (that Palin undermined her own strongest attributes through her shopping excess, when she was told to go much lower). Of course, the "three sides to every story" corollary plays strongly here, and likely the truth is in the middle, but it certainly does appear that the backbiting and infighting came as soon as Obama started to really take over, around the end of summer, and that many were trying to get what they could for themselves out of it. Very interesting stuff.

"Sarah Palin thinks the alphabet has 22 letters. "

Links to all seven chapters on Newsweeks story listed here:
http://www.newsweek.com/
Highlights: Hackers and Spending Sprees


Ch. 1: Barack Obama: How He Did It


Ch. 2: John McCain: Back From the Dead?


Ch. 3: The Long Clinton-Obama Siege


Ch. 4: McCain Camp Retools, Targets Obama


Ch. 5: Obama Sweats the Clintons, McCain Gambles on Palin


Ch. 6: Battling it Out in the Great Debates


Ch. 7: The Final Days

I really wish there were some sort of objective and reliable recording of what happened some of the stuff reported about Palin. It's certainly possible that I've just been giving Palin way too much credit, but some of the accusations this week are really mind boggling. I'd love to know if they really happened and if so, what context they occurred in.

Did she really not know the countries in North American or did she wonder if somehow other countries were included in NAFTA? (It would be goofy still, but sometimes the names we give to organizations that seem geographic aren't really limited that way and maybe she was afraid she missed coverage of other countries in the Americas joining the agreement. I don't know. If she lives in Alaska, how could she not know Canada was involved and how could anyone not know Mexico was involved? It's actually mind boggling.) Did she misspeak about Africa or really not know it was a continent? It's one thing to be kind of dumb, but it would seem really almost impossible that one could be a college graduate and be that bad off.

No kidding...heh

I hope this is not the case. We need to be united in order to accomplish our goals.

That's one of the main reasons I'm calling shenanigans on this one.

So very true. I've seen campaign people going at each other's throats months or years after a failed campaign. It's not very adult behavior. I keep going back to "Never get emotionally involved in an election you can't afford to lose."

Let me add my congratulations to those who worked for Barack Obama's win. And may both camps realize how seriously we need to unite this country.

Dan Quayle?

:D

I think Dan's stupidity was greatly exaggerated. He said dumb stuff sure, but do you think you could graduate from college, law school and pass the Indiana bar if you were actually as dumb as some of his quotes made him seem?

Maybe, but it seems more likely to me that he just didn't think as much as he should have as he was speaking.

I mean, we have a couple of Biden comments that would place him in the running for this kind of stupid too, but I doubt that most people who think that Palin and Quayle are really this stupid would accept that Biden is.

I think I know more lawyers than you, and therefore I am going to say YES. Also, Quayle was from an prominent wealthy family in the area. I think every attorney on GC is going to remember someone from their law school class who perhaps shouldn't have been there. Here's an interesting article on his legal career: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...973683,00.html

I think think we're talking about a different level of stupid in Quayle's publicly repeated comments and any lack of academic or legal achievement.

While I don't assume you have to be really smart to be a lawyer, I don't think if a person were actually as stupid as one would have be if Dan Quayle's quotes were indicative of his or her general intelligence, that he or she could pass the bar, even if he or she got through school based on family influence.

I'm not really making a case that Quayle is some sort of genius; I just don't think the worst of his quotes are indicative of his intelligence generally.

Difference between book smarts and common sense.

The "potatoE" incident is a common mistake for educated and uneducated people to make. It was good for jokes but the media made it a huge deal.

He said other dumb stuff. I felt sorry for Quayle because he couldn't catch a break.

And in the potato incident, he was apparently provided with an incorrectly spelled answer sheet or cue card. Weird that they would provide one, but if you were serving as a spelling judge and were provided with an answer sheet, it would be an awkward moment either way.

I don't really have any feelings about Quayle. I probably wouldn't describe him as book smart. I just don't consider him to be proof that Palin is really dumb, unless the real point is that having your stupid mistaken comments repeated over and over make people assume you're an idiot even if you aren't.

Some of Gov. Palin's comments on/about stories:
Back at work, Palin vents a bit over campaign criticism

OUT OF CONTEXT: Governor says some in national media were unprofessional.
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/582697.html

Palin denounces critics as cowardly; GOP lawyers try to sort out her RNC-paid for clothing.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/p...,4245268.story

And this story, which I found while reading some of the above, sent a chill down my spin. At first I thought it was about/from a direct report or press release from US Secret Serevice. However it seems to be just a few more details from the Newsweek story. Which would not seem to change all too much.
Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama

Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ack-Obama.html

I tend to believe Palin on many of her claims that much of the information leaked to the media was either false or taken out of context.

To hold Palin responsible for the reaction of some crazy people is a little unfair, considering what her comments actually were. If an accusation of "palling around with a terrorist" is supposed to actually equal inciting violence, I can only imagine what the far left is guilty of in their anti-Bush rhetoric.

ETA: As near as I can tell the Secret Service doesn't "blame" Palin. They, more logically, note the correlation of the rallies with the spike. I'd be interested in knowing how many threats there were, how many were regarded as credible, and how the numbers compare to other elections and other rallies. Palin's rhetoric just seems so relatively tame to have "incited" anything.

Benzgirl;
Seems as if some agree with you:
Duprey, Schmidt deny Newsweek report


Two top McCain aides are denying parts of Newsweek’s reconstruction of the 2008 race, a 50,000-word behind-the-scenes view of both campaigns that includes reporting done under the precondition that it wouldn’t be published until after Tuesday.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/michae...ek_report.html

Looks like they're stoking the publicity fires before they publish their book. It's ALL about the money, folks.:cool:

And considering the brilliant campaign McCain's people ran, they won't get jobs in Washington.

While this is a plus for campaigns everywhere, let's be real. They need to write those books cause unemployment is a bitch.

I'm actually looking forward to Palin's interview tomorrow night with Greta van Susteren on Fox. It will be her first real sit down since the election and these little amateurs will be shredded, or so I hope.

It's just ridiculous, regardless of which side of the aisle you're inhabiting.

Wow, what time is the interview? TIVO

This is partially off-topic, but I don't think Bush I had a high opinion of Quayle, and started to regret the pick soon after he made it. Grand Old Party, an excellent book about the history of the Republican party, talks a little about his regret over it.

Had the Democrats actually put forth a decent candidate in '88, it would have been interesting to see what kind of affect Quayle had on the electorate. Fortunately for the Republicans, Dukakis ran one of the 2-3 worst campaigns in history.

I'm not particularly a Quayle fan. I think you just quoted me to reintroduce the topic. But just for the record, I didn't bring him up and am completely unprepared to talk about him on his merits, other than not thinking he was really the complete idiot he was made out to be.

ETA: I started to mention something about Dukakis's lack of charisma, no matter what kind of campaign he ran, and then kind of mentally contrasted him with HW Bush, and it didn't seems so remarkable.

Oh, I wasn't making you out to be part of the Quayle fan club. As you said, I was only quoting your statement to tie it back to the thread.

I could have a whole conversation on the '88 election, which I find endlessly fascinating, but it would be very much off topic and boring to 99% of the board.

Seems as if Part I is at 10:00 PM tonight per Fox's web site-site has preview:

http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/index.html

Edit:
A few more interviews planned this week as well:
"Amid speculation in Alaska and nationwide about Palin's political future, the candidate has scheduled a series of national interviews on Fox News Monday night, NBC's "Today" show Tuesday and CNN on Wednesday. She also plans to attend the Republican Governors Association conference in Florida this week."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/6104938.html


Palin reflects on her run

The defeat, the future and the critics are all addressed
By SEAN COCKERHAM
scockerham@adn.com
Published: November 9th, 2008 11:38 PM
Last Modified: November 9th, 2008 07:52 AM
http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/584193.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-J-RPJDD1U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tebyjibeBg

Campbell Brown called it.....

Campbell Brown rips McCain aides for blaming Palin for McCain loss: ‘You picked her.’

Recently, former McCain staffers have been leaking embarrassing information about Gov. Sarah Palin’s cluelessness on foreign policy and her unprofessional behavior. Top aide Steve Schmidt wouldn’t say whether she was a good VP choice. Yesterday, CNN’s Campbell Brown excoriated these aides, noting that they were the ones who vetted Palin and trumpeted her candidacy:

BROWN: To those McCain aides who say she is the reason they lost this election… can I please remind you of one thing: you picked her. You are the ones who supposedly vetted her, and then told the American people she was qualified for the job. You are the ones who after meeting her a couple of times, told us she was ready to be just one heartbeat away from the Presidency. … If Sarah Palin is the reason some voters chose Barack Obama, that is no one’s fault but your own..

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/07/...l-brown-palin/

Palin-Africa Story a Hoax the Media Fell For:
 

Seems as if at least in one case they are not only cowards they do not exist at all!!!
I was web surfing a few of my political news sites and came across the following story on the NY Times web site:
A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence
It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.
Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.
Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.
And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.......................
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/ar...on/13hoax.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/13/arts/13hoax.php