I find this rather depressing.
McCain camp manager Rick Davis on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” spent most of the segment arguing about press coverage of Palin, downplayed Palin’s need to do interviews with the press. Dismissed reports that people within the campaign told McCain he couldn’t pick Lieberman for veep.
The McCain campaign is literally going to try to sell Sarah Palin as a credible president without letting the press talk to her. For example, this Sunday, Barack Obama will appear on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, John McCain with be on Face the Nation, and Joe Biden will be on Meet the Press. Sarah Palin will be reading briefing papers in Alaska. Her only appearance on television?
Fox News will air one-hour special documentary Saturday on Palin, interviewing her family, friends, colleagues.
Even Mark Halperin is mocking this campaign strategy. Ali has more.
It looks like Sarah Palin is going to be used more as a way to save congressional seats than any serious effort to win the presidency. Want evidence for that? John McCain cannot raise any more money for his presidential campaign because he is accepting public funding. So, why is Palin doing this?
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will appear at around 30 fund-raising events in the next two months leading up to Election Day – about one every two days on average, officials with Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign said today.
Where is that money going to go?
The money raised between now and Nov. 4 will go to the Republican National Committee and state parties, which can buy advertising and conduct get-out-the-vote activities to support the ticket.
Because McCain is accepting a public grant of $84.2 million to finance his general election bid, he is no longer allowed to raise funds for his campaign directly.
Money for the RNC and state parties will have a tangential beneficial effect for the top of the ticket, but the real beneficiaries are going to be politicians further down the ticket. A weak McCain-Romney ticket threatened to cause a wipe-out of Republicans in Congress and in state government. Palin will turn out the base in key Republican areas and she’ll raise a lot of dough. What she won’t do is run a normal campaign. She won’t be doing any media appearances except for fluff pieces. She’ll be doing a straight sprint…’30 fundraisers in 60 days’…to raise cash. That’s it. That’s what she’s for. There is a significant risk that this charade will collapse into an Epic Fail.
The strategy is an insult to every American. And then there are those scandals up in Alaska. Trust me on this…Alaska will supply bad news for Palin every single day of this campaign.
