Posted on 03/01/2010 8:25:58 PM PST by CutePuppy
Having read Sarah Palin’s book: Going Rogue, Common Sense University is absolutely baffled by what she describes happened during the ten-week Presidential campaign in 2008. As if it was not bad enough that the liberal media, the vast majority of our media, tried everything in the book to dishonor and discredit her with atrocious accusations and slander, her own campaign staff, the so called ‘B’ team did not at all support her and advise her properly. Instead, they treated her like some country hick and micro-managed her every day activities. They set up interviews with the likes of Charlie Gibson (ABC News) and Katie Couric (CBS News) that turned into disasters for Palin; not because of what she said but by how she was prepared for them and what she was asked by these two liberal ‘icons’. Why would the ‘B’ team campaign staffers think that those two liberals, Gibson and Couric, would treat Sarah Palin fairly. It was apparently Nicolle Wallace who pushed for the interview with Couric telling Palin that Couric liked her and so on. Anyway, we know how that all worked out.
McCain’s campaign manager Steve Schmidt was the big man in this campaign and he dictated what would happen during joint appearance campaign events up until the end when he had somebody tell Sarah Palin on Election night in Arizona that she Palin, was not to make a statement that evening and that her husband and children were not to be on stage with John McCain (as he gave his consolation speech). As it turned out, Todd Palin was on stage but not her children. Another issue was the billing by the McCain campaign of $50,000 to Sarah Palin for the ’vetting process’ expenses incurred during 2008 (prior to her nomination by McCain). Palin was told that she would not have had to pay this had they won the election (see page 363 of her book).
John McCain father and grandfather had been Admirals in the United States Navy and he chose to follow in their footsteps, his military career was excellent and he is mostly known for his heroic behavior during his six years of captivity in Vietnam as a POW. He will be forever a hero in this regard in America’s history! But in the early 1980’s, McCain began another career as a politician, first as U.S. Representative in Congress and then as U.S. Senator from Arizona, a title he still holds today. His political career was one of mixed results, he considered himself a maverick and he did things that were not always in accordance with party affiliation and conservative principles. We do not want to get into that here but instead just focus on his failed presidential bid.
We believe that he recognized in the summer of that year that his support among conservatives was weak and he could not totally count on their votes (due to his many flip-flops on conservative policies over the years). So he selected Sarah Palin as his running mate and it was an excellent choice because probably millions of conservative voters pulled the lever for his ticket because of her and not him. We here at Common Sense University are convinced that without Sarah Palin he would have lost the election to President Obama in a landslide similar to the gigantic loss that his Senatorial predecessor Barry Goldwater suffered in 1964 against Lyndon Johnson.
But his conduct during the campaign in connection with the way his running mate was ‘handled’ and treated by his paid campaign staffers makes us shudder. He, John McCain picked her and it was his duty to protect her from the shenanigans she had to suffer at the hands of his own team and then at the end to even allow the ‘campaign’ to collect the fifty thousand dollars from her for pre-nomination ‘vetting’ expenses is just incredulous and morally wrong. This is not the way a “hero” handles his affairs but it is shameful to the highest degree. We would call this ’wussy’ and cowardly by McCain! How could he let this happen? Or did he just walk away from his own campaign on November 6, 2008? In our opinion, John McCain was a hero a very long time ago and he is no longer a hero. Heros do not act this way and do not let things like this happen, period! In fact, John McCain should be ashamed of himself and enjoy his remaining years in retirement.
I agree. The citizens of the State of Arizona should make their voices heard.
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Some GOP insiders and campaign managers, as described in the article above, are our own worst enemies.
Well, at least this got Sarah Palin national attention running as Vice President on the Republican ticket in the 2008 Presidential election. I hope she has big things in her future.
I really think there is a possibility McCain was convinced to lose by the dems...
The worse thing is that that scenario doesn’t look incredible.
vaudine
McCain will be re-elected in Arizona. It won’t even be close. He’s good at winning elections. He runs as a conservative, legislates as a liberal, and has a real facility for attracting media interest even though most of his positions are dull re-hashes of center-left thinking (such as it is).
Also, the blogger here fails to note that McCain was easily able to distance himself personally from the petty resentment his own campaign staff had for Palin. Even his own daughter can take shots at Sarah and he still is able to coax her personal loyalty. People shouldn’t kid themselves about McCain. He’s very good at inside baseball in Washington.
I’m on page 354 of Sarah’s book. The election is over and Sarah does describe in detail how McCain’s staff handled her ... (in my opinion, badly) ... without being judgemental.
In her book, Sarah reveals - again - that she is one terrifice class act.
Seems that there is no limit to the depth of depravity, degeneracy, and immorality to which this son-of-a-bitch will aspire to attain.
I have to say that just sounds bizarre. First, I doubt that is what is normally, or ever done, to bill someone for vetting expenses That's a campaign expense like any other campaign expense. And I'd definitely bet that it is not a legally enforceable debt.
That was a totally classless and sounds almost unbelievable.
Trevor Potter, general counsel for the McCain campaign, told the Associated Press that the campaign had never asked Palin to pay a legal bill.
"To my knowledge, the campaign never billed Gov. Palin for any legal expenses related to her vetting, and I am not aware of her ever asking the campaign to pay legal expenses that her own lawyers incurred for the vetting process," he said.
When The Atlantic magazine asked Palin's lawyer and her spokesperson to comment on this, they declined.
I thought there were other POWs, and Vietnamese, who disputed McCain's hero status. Even if everything McCain says is true, I would not call his military career "excellent". He gave information to the enemy. I'm not saying I would not have under the same treatment. I just think he, to show respect to those who didn't, should not have led such a public life.
This essentially confirms that she has incurred legal expenses for vetting process (which she personally should not have to have) and that McCain campaign didn't reimburse her expenses, whether she "asked" them to do so or not. Campaign should have covered this from the beginning, if not, they should have had enough decency and professionalism to ask her for all her expenses. Taking into account the well-publicized incident with McCain's staff role in Palin's "expensive clothes shopping" it would not be surprising to find that McCain's campaign staff never asked or cared about her "out-of-pocket" expenses.
"Billed" might mean essentially the same as "not reimbursed"?
It's his life in what should have been a "public service" ever since I have problems with. It has been far less than exemplary and anything but a service to the "public". It's been all for McCain and his goal to become President, no matter who he has to stab in the back.
Beatles' George Harrison wrote a song perfectly befitting McCain :
I me me mine, I me me mine, I me me mine. All I can hear. I me mine, I me mine, I me mine...
McCain appears to have behaved honorably in Vietnam. But what actual good did his behavior do? I.e., what real benefit was there to the country?
He long ago undid any of it with his unprincipled, ego-driven “maverick” nonsense. He does not understand or respect the Constitution. He opposed the best thing Bush did (other than thwarting terrorists)—the Bush tax cuts.
My 2 cents, for whatever they are worth around here?
McCain ran one of the worst campaigns I’ve ever seen ( think Bob Dole! Bob Dole! ) except for two moments of tactical brilliance:
1)- Picking Sarah.
2)- Suspending his campaign for the financial bomb.
He squandered the first by sequestering her for two weeks with- For God’s Sake! former Bush advisors. He should have turned her loose and taken the chance.
He squandered the second by going along with The Good Ole Boys in DC— when the average Joe or Jane saw that, it was all over. Just another mongrel in the dogpack.
Sucks. For all of us, and America...
...He’s very good at inside baseball in Washington....
right, and he always throws the important games.
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