Memo: Shield Steve Schmidt from John McCain blame (plans to destroy Palin to save Schmidt)

Ten days before the 2008 presidential election, as blame was beginning to be laid out for John McCain’s “likely defeat,” a top communications adviser to the campaign wrote a detailed strategy memo focused on how to preserve the reputation of another key adviser, Steve Schmidt, POLITICO has learned.

The protective maneuver sheds more light on the final days of the 2008 campaign, a period of low morale marked by tensions between the Palin and McCain camps and the expectation of defeat.

“Thankfully, and rightfully so, some members of the political punditry are already coming his defense (Rove, McKinnon, Scarborough), however a well organized and coordinated effort is needed to defend Steve’s good reputation,” Jones wrote in the memo, which was sent to two partners, Adam Mendelsohn and Kirill Goncharenko.

Jones wrote it, sources said, at the request of top Mercury brass, as the campaign wound down and Schmidt was returning to his MPA role. At the time, the Republican nominee was sinking in the polls and the anonymous finger-pointing was well underway in press accounts.

The memo was intended as an in-house Mercury document — but it was discovered by some McCain staffers who were trying to wrap up the campaign, and were troubled by any effort to start looking at damage control before the votes had been cast, a source familiar with it said.

With the subject line “Schmidt,” the memo went on that the three, along with another former Mercuryite Terry Nelson, would “engage in this project,” and seek out the help of other supportive Republicans and some “friendly Democrats.”

So far eleven advisors close to the McCain/Palin campaign have gone on the record concerning the veracity of the film Game Change. All but two--Steve Schimdt and Nicolle Wallace, have repudiated it as a travesty of the truth, particularly as it has depicted Governor Palin. The film is not only riddled with falsehoods, but it is careless in its falshoods in that some are easily refuted. To take some examples: Gov. Palin allegedly thought the Queen, not the Prime Minister ran the British Government. Yet a quick search would have found previous interviews where Gov. Palin discussed the career of Margaret Thatcher, notably interviews with Sean Hannity in September 2008 and with Charlie Rose in 2007. It is laughable that she was not aware of the role of the British PM. And while slandering the whole GOP voting base as primitive, it repeats the lie that at one of Palin's rallies, someone shouted "kill him" at the mention of Obama's name. This alleged happening was thoroughly investaged by the Secret Service and found to be false. The film also insinuates that Palin's supporters are racist and has insinuations that Obama is a Muslim. Yet there is youtube footage of Palin being asked on a ropeline whether a Muslim could aspire to being president. She answered directly and unhestitatingly that 'there is no religious test in the Constitution'. If the makers of Game Change had made a film about the rest of the book they might have been forced to point out that it was Hillary Clinton who first insinuated that Obama might be Muslim just as it was Clinton who first raised the issues of Obama's association with unrepentent terrorist Professor Bill Ayers and the Reverend Wright. There is also video footage of a vivacious Sarah Palin visiting a restaurant and later an Irish pub on the very day that the film depicts her having a nervous breakdown and curling up into 'fetal' position. Laughable. On could go on listing lies after lie in this evil piece of cheap agit/prop. But what is truly evil--and I use the word evil advisedly---about these lies is the manner in which the producers attempt to carry those lies on the back of sometimes 'sympathic' glimpses of Governor Palin. The most complete demolition job on the film has been done by the website Big Hollywood. Much more than Sarah Palin, this film tells us a great deal more about Barrack Obama and his HBO/Hollywood allies and the world of counterfeit currency in which they live. And no one better than a bunch of forgers knows real coin when they see it.

Has this scumbag Schmidt ever been associated with a conservative Republican?

Depends on whether his former boss Dick Cheney is a conservative Republican ...

I know he managed a whole lot of losing campaigns, and he’s a homo-hugger with a lesbian sister ...

Cheney and "lesbian" and "homo-hugger"? I'm not going to touch that ...

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