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McCain should kick her off the ticket and forfeit the race. It's the only thing he could do at this point to even gain back a shred of credibility.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) – With 10 days to go until election day, long brewing tension between Sarah Palin and key aides to John McCain has become so intense, it is spilling out into the public.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin “going rogue” recently, while a Palin associate says she is simply trying to “bust free” of what she believes was a mishandled roll-out that damaged her.
McCain sources point to several incidents where Palin has gone off message, and privately wonder if they were deliberate. For example: labeling robo calls “irritating,” even as the campaign was defending the use of them and telling reporters she disagreed with the campaigns controversial decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McCain source tells CNN she appears to now be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser, “she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”
A Palin associate defended her by saying she is “not good at process questions” and that her comments on Michigan and the robo calls were answers to process questions.
But this Palin source acknowledged that she clearly is trying to take more control of her own message, pointing to last week’s impromptu press conference on a Colorado tarmac.
Tracey Schmitt, Palin's press secretary, was urgently called over after Palin wandered over to the press and started talking. Schmitt unsuccessfully tried several times to end the unscheduled session.
"We acknowledge that perhaps she should have been out there doing more," a different Palin adviser recently told CNN, arguing that "it's not fair to judge her off one or two sound bites" from the network interviews.
The Politico reported Saturday about Palin's frustration specifically with McCain advisers Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, who helped make the decision to limit Palin's initial press contact to a couple of high profile interviews with Charlie Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, which all McCain sources admit were highly damaging.
In response, Wallace emailed CNN the same quote she gave the Politico:
“If people want to throw me under the bus my personal belief is that the most honorable thing to do is to lie there,” said Wallace.
But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was first picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and missteps could have been a lot worse. They insisted she needed time to get briefed on issues on the national and international stage she was not familiar with and has never dealt with, and on McCain’s long record.
Schmitt came to the back of the campaign plane Saturday to deliver a statement to traveling reporters, saying, “Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want, but from Governor Palin down, we have one agenda, and that's to win on election day."
Yet another senior adviser lamented the public recriminations.
“This is what happens with a campaign that's behind, it brings out the worst in people — finger pointing and scapegoating,” this senior adviser told CNN.
This adviser also decried the double standard, noting that Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, has gone off the reservation numerous times, most recently by telling donors at a fundraiser that America’s enemies will try to “test” Obama.
Tensions like those within the McCain-Palin campaign are not unusual; vice presidential candidates have a history of butting heads with the top of the ticket. John Edwards and his inner circle repeatedly questioned Sen. John Kerry strategy in 2004, and Kerry loyalists repeatedly aired in public their view that Edwards would not play the traditional attack dog role with relish because he wanted to protect his future political interests.
Even in a winning campaign like Bill Clinton's, some of Al Gore's aides in 1992 and again in 1996 questioned how Gore was being scheduled for campaign events.
Jack Kemp's aides distrusted the Dole camp and vice versa, and Dan Quayle loyalists had a list of gripes remarkably similar to those now being aired by Gov. Palin's aides.
With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be looking after her own future.
"She's no longer playing for 2008, she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart told CNN. "And the difficulty is, when she went on Saturday Night Live, she became a reinforcement of her caricature. She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally."
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At this point, I'm at a loss for words.
McCain should kick her off the ticket and forfeit the race. It's the only thing he could do at this point to even gain back a shred of credibility.
Ive said everything I have ever wanted to about her. What I am at a loss for are her ardent supporters.
She represents nothing of substance, yet we have a bunch of lonely men praising her for her apparent attractiveness.
I guess if angel can vote with her faith, its acceptable for men to vote with their "other" brain, too.
I find it deplorable, nonetheless.
HUSSEIN and the Dems have to keep the pressure on. Stories like this are dangerous distractions. It sounds like HUSSEIN winning all the NH polls, but losing NH to Hillary was an excellent lesson he learned well.
The Repug effort to steal the election will very ambitioius, aggressive, motivated, and intelligent, just like the Repug banksters who ed up the world economy. The vote gathering systems are total bull and open to manipulation.
Last edited by boutons_; 10-25-2008 at 05:33 PM.
It has been apparent for a little while and even discussed here that she is obviously looking out for herself right now. The problem is that she has bought into her own hype. Come on- who but a diva needs a clothes and make-up budget like that.
I think we are about to witness a massive landslide.
If Palin truly is the new face of the Republican Party they won't win an election for quite some time.
I suspect we shall see all out warfare though once this election is over. The real conservatives will either fight back for their party or something new will rise from the ashes. Social conservatives will likely be marginalized, as they should.
whats new? I mean seriously .. ...you guys just picked up on this?
oh well.
2012?!? If this clueless woman is supposed to be the future of the Republican party they're done
When it makes the front page of CNN, that's something more than just a bunch of people sitting around on a sports forum talking about it.
Exactly. Some (cough *timvp* cough) would have you believe that the Repugs will bounce back, but in the embodiment of Palin as the future and all the flat-out racism of her supporters it appears that the base is moving even more to the right, whilst everyone else is moving leftward or staying moderate. So I'm all for the far-right's adoration of her, because even more so than now, eventually the Republican party is just gonna be her and a bunch of racist neocons sitting alone in the dark, wondering why nobody else takes them seriously.2012?!? If this clueless woman is supposed to be the future of the Republican party they're done
Serious question to everyone: If this does in fact happen and the Republican Party somehow keeps moving to the right while the rest of the country keeps moving to the center, is it realistic at all that the Republican Party could fade away and a splinter group from it could form a new major party in the United States? I realize it sounds a bit far fetched, but it has happened before (see: Whig Party).
Four years is a long time for the Democrats to find some way to piss off the country. Lets not write off the GOP just yet. We elected George Bush 2 times, after all.
I kinda hope this happens. For one, the woman would be comic gold again. But realistically, I think that her running in 2012 might be the best chance that this country has for a viable third party to rise from the ashes of the burning mess that is the current Republican party. That is, if the moderate Republicans who have turned their back and either voted Obama or stayed away from the polls fight for their party back, which I hope they do. They should, because what has happened to it is deplorable.
Haha, yeah I said something similar, but a little later than you. I think the most realistic possibility is the old Repubs who don't identify with their party would moonlight as "independents" who actually have a chance at winning, as opposed to rarely winning.
pitbull as future of the Repug or 3rd party?
Perceptions of Palin Grow Increasingly Negative, Poll Says
By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 25, 2008; A03
While top-of-the-ticket rivals John McCain and Barack Obama both remain broadly popular heading into Election Day, public perceptions of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin have fallen dramatically since she emerged on the national political scene at the GOP convention.
A majority of likely voters in a new Washington Post-ABC News national poll now have unfavorable views of the Alaska governor, most still doubt her presidential qualifications and there is an even split on whether she "gets it," a perception that had been a key component of her initial appeal.
Palin's addition to the GOP ticket initially helped McCain narrow the gap with Obama on the question of which presidential hopeful "better understands the problems of people like you," but at 18 percentage points, the Democrat's margin on that question is now as big as it has been all fall. Nor has Palin attracted female voters to McCain, as his campaign had hoped.
Obama is up by a large margin among women, 57 to 41 percent in the new Post-ABC tracking poll. The senator from Illinois just about ties McCain among white women -- 48 percent back Obama, 49 percent McCain -- a group that President Bush won by 11 points four years ago and one that had shifted significantly toward the GOP this year after the Palin pick.
In polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday evenings, after the disclosure that the Republican National Committee used political funds to help Palin assemble a wardrobe for the campaign, 51 percent said they have a negative impression of her. Fewer, 46 percent, said they have a favorable view. That marks a stark turnaround from early September, when 59 percent of likely voters held positive opinions.
The declines in Palin's ratings have been even more substantial among the very voters Republicans aimed to woo. The percentage of white women viewing her favorably dropped 21 points since early September; among independent women, it fell 24 points.
More broadly, the intensity of negative feelings about Palin is also notable: Forty percent of voters have "strongly unfavorable" views, more than double the post-convention number. Nearly half of independent women now see her in a very negative light, a nearly threefold increase.
The shift in Palin's ratings come with a pronounced e in the percentage of voters who see her as lacking the experience it takes to be a good president. Voters were about evenly divided on that question a month and a half ago, but toward the end of September a clear majority said she was not qualified. In the new poll, 58 percent said she is insufficiently experienced.
Among a recent spate of conservative defections from McCain, one leading Republican was particularly pointed about the impact of Palin's professional background on his decision. Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School and former solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, asked that the McCain-Palin campaign remove his name from several committees in large part because of "the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."
A Post-ABC poll earlier this week reported that the Palin pick deeply damaged voters' confidence in the types of decisions McCain would make as president.
Perhaps more fundamentally for Palin's national political future, though, is that voters in the new poll are evenly divided about whether she understands their problems. Three weeks ago, 60 percent said she did; now it is 50 percent yes, 47 percent no.
Both Democratic and independent women are half as likely as they were in late September to see Palin as empathetic. Among independent women, the percentage who view Palin as in tune with people like themselves slipped from 73 to 50 percent.
Palin's struggle to connect deepens McCain's own deficit on the issue. On the question of who is more empathetic, 55 percent of voters said Obama, 37 percent McCain. And McCain picks up few of those who view Palin as disconnected.
But the gap is smaller on overall favorability, one of the factors that buoys the GOP ticket as Election Day approaches, despite generally negative poll numbers: 63 percent of likely voters have favorable impressions of Obama, 55 percent of McCain. Among the crucial segment of independent voters, the two rivals have identical 58 percent favorable ratings.
Taking the tickets together, 53 percent of likely voters express favorable views of both Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., 41 percent of both McCain and Palin. Those numbers are very close to current vote preferences in the latest Post-ABC tracking poll: Fifty-three percent said they would vote Democratic if the election were held today; 44 percent would opt for the GOP.
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yep, pitbull has bright future on the national political stage.
Last edited by boutons_; 10-26-2008 at 10:27 AM.
Good. The Mccain campaign is made up of clowns who suck at this.
uhhh McCain is far from the right genius.
I sincerely hope we never see or hear from this woman after the election until a "Where are they now" segment on VH1. I realize she's a deer in the headlights...but she's a very toxic deer and the fact that McCain's campaign searched for someone and chose her is even more frightening.
She's got big nice T's. I'd vote for her myself if Barack were a white guy.
pitbull has gone completey nuts. She's either really, really stupid or thinks we are really, really stupid.
"See, under a big government, more tax agenda, what you thought was yours would really start belonging to somebody else, to everybody else. If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody. Obama, Barack Obama has an ideological commitment to higher taxes, and I say this based on his record... Higher taxes, more government, misusing the power to tax leads to government moving into the role of some believing that government then has to take care of us. And government kind of moving into the role as the other half of our family, making decisions for us. Now, they do this in other countries where the people are not free."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/1..._n_137851.html
Really? I think it'll go the opposite. I think the Evangelical intolerance is the minority and I think once the moderate conservatives regain their self respect and shake off the idiocy of the last several years, they'll regroup and reform the Republican party. I think you'll see a sincere attempt at some Evangelical third party that, with any luck, will be long suffering and doomed.
If Palin remains in any kind of standing with the Republicans, I intend to personally begin donating to her election committees. The longer she is on the radar, the longer the right will go without any power and the more they'll have to face the fact that they need to purge people like her from their ranks.
Not to start another thread on this unworthy, unreforming, corrupt pitbull , but it sure looks like she's in a heap of trouble back "up there" in Alaska, you betcha. Seems like the last thing the Repugs should have wanted was the media crawling all over pitbull 's record.
Great and wise 3AM decision, McBottomGun, you've crashed and burned yet again.
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AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids
"ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081025/...palin_pipeline
No need for name-calling, Anti.Hero. I agree that McCain is pretty moderate as far as Republicans go. He was even moreso in 2000, but has since started trending toward the party line. I was mostly talking about the future of the party, especially if Palin is the future face of the party, as she IS to the right on most issues. Mostly, I was asking a serious question to get some more opinions, while also pointing out that moving further away from the center of opinion when you're already potentially losing the White House and legislature might not be the best idea.
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