I know it won’t come as much of a surprise but I’m hearing from anonymous Hill sources (I always wanted to use that kind of weasel sourcing) that the Republicans are getting nervous as all hell about the selection of Sarah Palin as their vice-presidential nominee. It goes without saying that the ‘Realist School’ on foreign policy isn’t remotely amused by this pick. Senators Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, George Voinovich, and Secretary Colin Powell, Undersecretary Richard Armitage, Brent Scowcroft, and their ilk were already near their wit’s end with John McCain’s embrace of neo-conservatism. But this pick is a bridge too far. No one can defend it and it is getting more preposterous to try with each new damaging revelation.
Even Karl Rove acknowledged that she was a risky pick in his talk this morning with the Maine delegation. The soap opera is getting surreal. Sarah Palin’s involvement with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party is just the latest punch in the stomach to a reeling Grand Old Party. She is a Buchananite who liked (and maybe voted for) Ron Paul? Now news of her daughter’s pregnancy adds new poignancy to her 2006 campaign promise.
“Explicit sex ed programs will not find my support.”
Lord have mercy, it’s hard out there for a Republican pimp. They’re going to have to ditch Sarah Palin. They’ll blame her, of course, but the main fault lies with John McCain, who only met her twice before selecting her and who obviously did an inadequate job of vetting her. Picture Sen. Lugar at home with his wife watching this on his teevee:
Hoo-boy. McCain has less than 48 hours to yank this nomination. He better start cracking.
it would hardly surprise me if she was convinced to “withdraw”. BUT
repubs do NOT admit mistakes, ever. and the “realists” you cite don’t have much influence.
and, who’s Sargent Shriver to her Eagleton? No one with any sense is going to tie himself to McCain’s sinking ship. Actually that would be the best case, and typical McCain – dump her without having the replacement lined up, and then publicly flop around for another week.
typical McCain – dump her without having the replacement lined up, and then publicly flop around for another week.
Should be fun.
They are going to stick with Palin and spin it to highwater. No way they will admit a mistake – its not in their DNA.
Hopefully, the piranas pick up on all the nice and juicy threads that Palin has provided and as Billmon in his diary at DKos pointed out turn it into “Shark Bait”.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
.
Cindy McCain’s company hosted the location in vetting Sarah Palin in Arizona.
Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager and the person at the point of the vice presidential process, said there was no abrupt change in the final hours. Nor, he said, was Palin selected without having gone through the full vetting process that was done for other finalists. That process included reviews of financial and other personal data, an FBI background check and considerable discussion among the handful of McCain advisers involved in the deliberations.
“Nobody was vetted less or more than anyone in the final stages, and John had access to all that information and made the decision,” Davis said. “It’s really not much more complicated than that.”
In part to blunt criticism that McCain had pulled a last-minute switch and turned to Palin without all the information he may have needed to make a decision, some of those advisers shared details Saturday, mostly on a not-for-attribution basis.
CINDY MCCAIN PLAYED A KEY ROLE PICKING A VP
Six people were involved in the secretive deliberations that led to Palin’s selection: McCain; his wife, Cindy; campaign manager Davis; longtime confidant Mark Salter; senior adviser Steve Schmidt; and key strategist Charlie Black. In addition, Washington lawyer A.B. Culvahouse oversaw the vetting.
Davis had spoken with her a number of times. The McCain camp had reviewed everything they could find on her, including videotapes of her public speeches and interviews. “She makes a great speech,” one adviser observed.
Last Sunday night, McCain talked to Palin by phone from Arizona, in what aides called a somewhat-lengthy call, which prompted him to ask her to come to Arizona later in the week.
She flew into Flagstaff on Wednesday and that night conferred with Schmidt and Salter. On Thursday morning about 7 a.m., she, Salter, Schmidt and a Palin aide climbed into an SUV with tinted windows to begin the 45-minute drive to McCain’s retreat in Sedona.
There McCain greeted her, offered her a cup of coffee, and the two of them walked off to a bend in the creek on the property where chairs and a bench rest. The spot is one of McCain’s favorites, with a hawk’s nest above. McCain and Palin talked alone and then were joined by Cindy McCain.
Aides said Cindy McCain played a key role throughout the process of picking a vice president.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I swear to God, McCain has got to be punking all of us. He’s going to reveal his actual VP sometime before Wednesday.
I can’t take Palin seriously anymore. And I was actually concerned Grandpa’s gamble might pay off!
This has got to be a joke. Ashton Kutcher is going to flash across the screen any moment.
FLATLINE_______________________
Here lies AP. She died of shock that Campbell Brown actually pushed back against the awful spin of Tucker Knows-No-Bounds that insulted my intelligence and that of my fellow citizens, my-two-year old nephew AND his dog.
yeah, and she’s married to Dan Senor, one of the most insulting GOP spinmeisters in the history of the genre.
No kidding. I can only imagine that this was a signal.
Oh, I forgot: Tucker also insulted our 2 cats, the deer family roaming in our backyard, and the ghost of my dead guinea pig.
mcstain really screwed the pooch with palin, and there wasn’t a lot of love for him there before, and her dismissal, in whatever way it’s accomplished, is not going to be well received. the fundies’ heads are gonna explode IF he/they dump her now. they’ll turn on mcstain like a pack of jackals.
who might the next pick be when she “withdraws”, assuming the RATs still entertain thoughts of pulling this out?…scary thought II…mike huckabee?
or might we see a real september surprise and a completely new ticket?
pass the popcorn…the next 48 are gonna be very interesting.
.
“Is this a joke?” That seemed to be the question du jour when my phone started ringing off the hook at 6:45am here in Alaska. I mean, we’re sort of excited that our humble state has gotten some kind of national `nod’….but seriously? Sarah Palin for Vice President?
There is no doubt in my mind that many Alaskans are feeling pretty excited about this. But we live in our own little bubble up here, and most of the attention we get is because of the Bridge to Nowhere, polar bears, the indictment of Ted Stevens, and the ongoing investigation and conviction of the string of legislators and oil executives who literally called themselves “The Corrupt Bastards Club”.
So seeing our governor out there in the national spotlight accepting the nomination for Vice Presidential candidate is just downright surreal.
ANCHORAGE (Blogger/Washington Post) Aug. 5, 2008 – John McCain is not in Alaska because they only have three Electoral College votes! Something he is counting on as a given in the pocket win. History is on his side but times change and so do generations of people. McCain is wrong in counting Alaska as a given when the majority of citizens have no access to health care or even dream of health insurance. I can’t speak for the people of Alaska but if the people running for the office of President don’t even open up even one political office in your entire state, then don’t you think they don’t care about you as a person, a voter, an American?
Follow the money and you see who the real candidate for President in the Republican Party is. Alaska does not matter, isn’t even worth a dollar in campaign dollars raised. Follow the money from the Obama campaign and you see that he is about inclusion of all American voters. Even if you have to take a plane to reach a village in the land that is the last true frontier.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."from alaska native issues
hmmmmmm…it appears sandra “barracuda” palin is not well thought of by the native peoples in her own state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rni6G7RRFkk
Wow. Check out this ABC video of the festivities at the GOP Convention in the Twin Cities. The most pointed and hard-hitting piece I’ve seen in years from a mainstream news source. Absolutely amazing. I sent a congratulatory note to Charles Gibson at ABC News. As much as we gripe about the corporate media, I think it’ a good idea to give them a pat on the back when they get it right. Here’s the link if you’d like to do the same –
http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3271346&cat=World%20News%20with%20Charles%20Gibson
Maybe Big Media has had enough, too. More like this, please….
That is pretty harsh. I heard this morning and evening from my friends on the ground in MN, they said that the workshops/panels had been cancelled, but the parties, while sorta lame, were going strong.
Well, the question is whether McCain can lure Shriver out of retirement. He’d be perfect for the ticket. He’s pro-life, he’s got experience (at running for VP), and at 93 he’d make McCain look youthful by comparison.
I think McCain has to stick with Palin and hope that she turns out to be one of those awful VP picks that isn’t fatal to the ticket (like Agnew or Quayle). The worst thing he could do is drop Palin from the ticket. It would effectively end the election.
If what we know so far is the worst of it, Palin should be able to ride to out. Her daughter’s pregnancy shouldn’t be held against her, and may in the end win her sympathy. The Alaska Independence Party connection could be billed as trying to reduce the sway of the Federal government, in line with a Reagan-type philosophy. The trooper scandal could be a distraction, but it’s something that was known before Palin was selected, so the campaign must not think that it’s too serious.
On the plus side, how many VP choices were out there that could get the enthusiastic backing of the evangelicals, the Ron Paul supporters, and Big Oil?
Lord have mercy, it’s hard out there for a Republican pimp. They’re going to have to ditch Sarah Palin.
LOL! They’ll blame the evil liberals for driving her away and the stupid fundies will fall for it.
Who will McCain replace her with?
If Palin does decide to withdraw her name, it will be because of the rampant, institutionalized misogyny of the Democratic Party that they have been foisting upon America for decades.
Pay not attention to what the GOP has been doing to dismantle feminism and civil rights for all Americans.
If Rove doesn’t have something major up his sleeve, this will turn out to be about the worst blunder in modern political history. I give her a week at most. Even our bought and paid for media can’t ignore how completely unfit for office, any office, this woman is. Don’t count out Leiberman taking her place.
and one reason only.
To energize the religious-right wing of the party. And from most everything that I have seen this appears to have been accomplished.
Her experience doesn’t matter. Her lightweight resume is irrelevant. Her association with various groups who we think might be questionable is a non-issue. The fact that the “Realist School” thinks Palin is a mistake does not matter one whit here people! McCain knows that in the end they will fall in line. They will swallow their pride and support the ticket. But McCain knew that if the fundamentalists sat this one out, he was toast. He needs their money and he needs their enthusiastic backing. This was a purely political decision based on his need to reel this critical group back into the Republican fold.
This hue and cry for her McCain to pull her nomination is almost laughable. McCain can win the election without the enthusiastic support of the Lugar’s, Hagel’s and Powell’s. He can afford to piss them off. But he cannot win without the full support of the right wing religous crowd.
No one on the McCain side gives a shit about whether she is “ready to be President”. Pull her nomination? What is everybody smoking here?? Remember, it’s the Republicans were talking about.
Or perhaps a bridge to nowhere..
Eagleton-I don’t feel good about using his name to describe what is happening with McCain. From what I recall, he was a decent person who was mentally ill. I believe he died recently, and that his symptoms had become more troublesome with time. He is to be pitied not held up in scorn.
A more apt comparison is Geraldine Ferraro who wasn’t vetted, is clearly not a nice person and had a lot of skeletons in the closet, most specifically, her husband’s unethical “career.” But perhaps we’d rather beat up on Eagleton who is deceased and cannot speak for himself than bring up Ferraro again.
I think the Eagleton thing has something to do with the hope that Palin will drop out like he did.
And with her earmark history, it could happen.
As a fellow Vagina-American I don’t want Palin to drop out. She might mobilize the hard right but anyone who is moderate or independent will (providing there is a brain there) go for Obama in light of her extreme-right social conservatism.
The only reason I’d like to see her drop out is that it shines a light on how poor McStain’s judgment is. The one big decision he had as a presidential candidate, and he screwed it up big time.
If she stays on, I hope we see a commercial about how the guy who’s running against earmarks picked a VP who hired lobbyists to get them for her as a small-town mayor. She’s no Washington outsider.