Sarah to Steve Schmidt:
- “I'm a forty-four year old, healthy, athletic woman...Now you're going to tell me what to eat?”
LOL
Posted on 11/14/2009 10:07:41 AM PST by iowamark
Top aides to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign hit back at Sarah Palin Friday, after news reports revealed that the former vice presidential nominee’s soon-to-be-released book extensively criticizes the campaign’s press strategy – with many of its hardest shots aimed squarely at campaign manager Steve Schmidt.
Schmidt, she writes, was “grim-faced” and “cool,” and tried to pin the campaign’s troubles on what he claimed was Palin’s post-partum depression, and even went to so far as to try and dictate her diet.
According to excerpts published on the Huffington Post, Palin “took in his rotund physique and noted that he used nicotine to keep his own cognitive connections humming along.”
…
“I'm a forty-four year old, healthy, athletic woman raising five kids and governing a large state, I thought as his words faded into a background buzz. Sir, I really don't know you yet. But you've told me how to dress, what to say, who to talk to, a lot of people not to talk to, who my heroes are supposed to be and we're still losing. Now you're going to tell me what to eat?”
More generally, Palin uses the book to note the “jaded aura” of the "professional political caste" guiding McCain:
"But I did notice... funny things [about the handlers] that even Piper commented on — such as tumbling out of the bus in a pack, lighting cigarettes as they went so it looked like a walking smoke cloud with legs."
Palin also faults Schmidt for his penchant for profanity, writing that he warned her just before the vice-presidential campaign that “moderator Gwen Ifill is "going to f*** with you."
"I'm thinking, Why are you telling me this? Last minute... what's the point? And no more f-bombs around Piper, please?"
According to excerpts from copies obtained by media outlets, Palin charges that the staffers assigned to her by McCain’s team blocked her from speaking to the press aboard the campaign plane. And she asserts that former McCain communications aide Nicole Wallace ‘pushed’ her to do a September 2008 interview with CBS’s Katie Couric that resulted in serious damage to the former Alaska governor’s image.
“Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to the back of the aircraft and talk to the press,” Palin wrote, according to an excerpt that appeared Friday on the Drudge Report website. “At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on, [campaign aides] Tracey [Schmitt] or Tucker [Eskew] would call headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond, ‘No! Absolutely not—block her if she tries to go back.’”
The excerpt also described Wallace as having aggressively “pushed for Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News” because “Katie really needed a career boost.”
Palin’s tome also pins blame on the campaign for the decision to provide her and her family with a new $150,000 wardrobe, saying she was aghast at the price of the items provided. Writing about her speech at the Republican convention, she cracks, "The kids looked great — even in a bunch of borrowed clothes."
Former McCain strategist John Weaver slammed Palin for using the book for “petty and pathetic” score-settling.
“Sarah Palin reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie 'Harvey,' complete with imaginary conversations. All books like these are revisionist and self-serving, by definition,” Weaver wrote in an email to POLITICO. “But the score-settling by someone who wants to be considered a serious national player is petty and pathetic.”
“The problem wasn't who her interview was with, the problem was her interview,” he added. “Couric asked no trick questions. This just seems to be an attempt to obscure as bad a performance since Roger Mudd asked Ted Kennedy that simple question.”
Longtime McCain hand and former campaign manager Mark Salter offered a cooler response disputing Palin’s account, and told POLITICO in an email that it does not line up with his memory of events.
Explaining the campaign’s decision to limit press access as Election Day drew closer, Salter said that “after we had been criticized in the press for a lack of disciplined messaging earlier in the campaign when we provided frequent and unscheduled access to the candidate, we felt it necessary to adopt the same deliberativeness and discipline employed by our opponents and rely less on impromptu press conferences with our traveling press, and more on interviews arranged in advance so our candidates would have the same opportunity our opponents enjoyed to discuss and prepare for the interview.”
Reflecting on the first set of interviews Palin did as the GOP vice presidential nominee, Salter said that the sit downs were “discussed and agreed to by senior members of the campaign staff in consultation with the candidate” and that Wallace did not choose either the journalists or the outlets Palin spoke to.
“Nicolle Wallace, along with others, was tasked with helping the Governor prepare for some of her interviews. She did not decide which interview requests the candidates would accept. Nor was she tasked with securing the candidates’ agreement,” Salter said.
“Those decisions were made by campaign management in consultation with the candidates. Campaign management and the candidates agreed to multi-segment interviews so the Governor would maintain a presence in the media while she was in debate prep,” he added. “And to the best of my knowledge, any interviews the Governor had with the individuals she referred to were approved and arranged by the campaign management with her agreement.”
Palin did not respond to a request for comment.
Demonstrating once again (as if further proof were necessary, hah!) that the McQueeg campaign was staffed principally by losers and arrogant clowns.
Steve Schmidt - say, would that be the same “Steve Schmidt” who is currently advising Mitt Romney’s 2012 exploratory organization? Nahh... that’s too much of a coincidence.
Mr McCain himself has praised the book and has an autographed copy. Said he is proud of Sarah. Sounds like the staffers don’t respect their old boss’s opinion very much.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Petty and pathetic. Sort of like McCain’s ‘campaign’.
Must be striking some nerves.
The only thing petty and pathetic was McLame and his campaign staff who ran the worst campaign since Dole. They need to be cut out of the body politic as they’ve proven they have nothing positive to contribute but surrender and failure.
I know what Steve Schmidt can eat.
The McCain staff of buffoons decided long before the election that if they lost, they needed a scapegoat and they found one. They knew the media hates her and would believe whatever they said so it was the perfect plan. Campaigns wins and campaigns lose, but this campaign was the worst I have ever seen in my entire life. A bunch of idiots, they even(from the clip Ive seen on Oprah) even controlled what she ate! They wanted a puppet and a robot and when she refused to do so that is when they came up with this plan
nicole wallace
Steve Schmidt
Mark Salter
John Weaver
these ppl sound hostile to palin in the mccain camp
Don’t forget Weaver announced he was becoming a Democrat after he left McCain’s senatorial staff.
McCain camp: We already know who is petty and pathetic.
A man who would accept the nomination of POTUS especially when he does not deserve it only to give it to his competitor is petty and pathetic.
A man who ignores what America and its citizens want is petty and pathetic.
A man who sides mostly with what is not good for America or its people is petty and pathetic.
Those are only a few things about John McCain that are petty and pathetic.
Sarah to Steve Schmidt:
LOL
Smarmy little weasels set her up, smirking the entire time. They can go jump in a lake with their denials.
How ironic, that headlide makes the McCain campaign look “petty and pathetic” . This, in a nutshell, is why he lost.
McQueer is yesterday’s news.
Oh yes,
A man who would knowingly throw his running mate to the wolves is petty and pathetic.
LOLOL.........we KNOW who is pathetic and it isn’t Sarah Palin.
Grow up guys, you’ve shown yourself to be incompetent, petty, and of more harm than good to America.
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