Palin Exposed

Another day, another leak from the wreckage of the McCain campaign. First Todd Purdum publishes a harsh piece in Vanity Fair on the Palin nomination, filled with harsh quotations from anonymous senior campaign sources. Politico follows with an even more revealing exchange of charges and counter-charges. Now at NRO, Mark Hemingway reproduces a series of leaked internal emails. The issue in all cases: Who was revealing to the world these damaging insider descriptions of Gov. Palin?

I'm as fascinated as the next person by the insider details. But let's pause for a sobriety check. The 2008 campaign is over. The 2012 campaign has begun. Gov. Palin is a leading candidate for the Republican nomination. As much as everybody enjoys code-breaking the mystery of who blabbed, isn't the more urgent and important question: Is it true?

Palin evokes a devoted response from a large following. In the mysterious soup of motives that sustains her supporters, enthusiasm for effective governance does not seem a very major ingredient. But you'd think they would at least care whether she could campaign competently. Purdum argues intensely that she cannot - that a Palin candidacy would be the greatest self-inflicted disaster since George McGovern or Barry Goldwater. Here are some of the highlights from Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair piece:

ITEM: The top McCain aides who had tried hard to work with Palin—Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist; Nicolle Wallace, the communications ace; and Tucker Eskew, her traveling counselor—were barely on speaking terms with her, and news organizations were reporting that anonymous McCain aides saw Palin as a “diva” and a “whack job.”

ITEM: At one point, trying out a debating point that she believed showed she could empathize with uninsured Americans, Palin told McCain aides that she and Todd in the early years of their marriage had been unable to afford health insurance of any kind, and had gone without it until he got his union card and went to work for British Petroleum on the North Slope of Alaska. Checking with Todd Palin himself revealed that, no, they had had catastrophic coverage all along. She insisted that catastrophic insurance didn’t really count and need not be revealed. This sort of slipperiness—about both what the truth was and whether the truth even mattered—persisted on questions great and small.

ITEM: By all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare. In the run-up to the Couric interview, Palin had become preoccupied with a far more parochial concern: answering a humdrum written questionnaire from her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman.

ITEM: In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.

ITEM: More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.

ITEM: A year ago, 80 percent of Alaskans viewed Palin very favorably or somewhat favorably; by this spring, just 55 percent had a positive opinion.

The McCain campaign is over. The duty of confidentiality has expired. The next campaign has begun. If conservatives are to avoid catastrophe, they need to hear from those inside what exactly happened. If true, the leaks constitute an urgent warning and public service. I believe they are true. For sure they confirm what I have heard during the campaign and after. Instead of complaining about these leaks, conservatives should heed them - and fast.

They are only doing this because they know that Sarah can beat Romney. Geez, backstabbing in the Republican party, what a shock. Instead of coming TOGETHER as a party to go after Obama, they gotta backstab each other, what else is knew. No wonder they can’t win elections. They are forgetting who the REAL enemy is. Geez, this reminds me so much of what Reagan had to go through, he was hated by his own party too

So she'd be another Bill Clinton, is that what he's saying?

“In the mysterious soup of motives that sustains her supporters...”

Yes, because wanting a candidate with unambiguous positions, experience with domestic energy production, and the toughness to give as good as she gets is just SO hard to fathom.

“...enthusiasm for effective governance does not seem a very major ingredient.”

Bollocks. Just bollocks (and not the dog’s bollocks, either).

Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.

Gee...which photo below truly shows those traits???? LOL

Or.....

Frum doesn’t like Sarah, or Rush L. for that matter, but thinks 0 is `man-candy’.

http://barelyablog.com/?p=5697
Here’s Frum juxtaposing Obama to Limbaugh ...

“On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.”

“Neo-con”=limp liberal

David Frum: "Two of our most plausible candidates for president in 2012 are leading Mormons: Mitt Romney and Utah governor Jon Huntsman."

David Frum: "I have a lot of regard for Mitt Romney as a man and politician.
Let me say for the record: If Romney emerges as the Republican nominee, I will support him without qualm."

Scumbag who attacked Gov.Palin, throwing Election2008 with the rest of TeamRomney.

David Frum: "Frum was indeed a critic of Palin, calling her nomination a "huge mistake" during an October 13 Early Show appearance."

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House,
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin.
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
He's in charge on November 5th.'"
The Prowler added: "Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."
The Romney supporters in the McCain campaign had access to internal polling which indicated well in advance of the November 4 election that McCain had no chance to win.
So they began working to position their man Mitt for a run in 2012. Just two days after the election,The Palmetto Scoop reported:
"One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
These aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.
Erick Erickson, who organized Operation Leper, said:
"Here’s what I think: I think there are some staffers on the McCain campaign who seriously screwed up the roll out of Sarah Palin, to which Governor Palin herself objected.
These staffers are now out trying to finish her off thinking, as typical D.C. types do, that if they don’t do it to her, she’ll do it to them. They just never understood who Palin is or what she is about."
"Likewise, I do think there are some staffers and others who expect Mitt Romney to run again in 2012,
they decided McCain could not win, and decided to undermine Sarah Palin and her chances hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."

"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign? (Mark Wallace, Romney pimp)
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

Who benefits most from Sanford meltdown? Californian (that's right) Mitt Romney

"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

Poor sport spoiler Romney doing what he does best:

Novak: "Fred Thompson drop-out rumors traced to Romney campaign"

Said Novak: "The rumors were traced in part to Mitt Romney's campaign,
trying to stir up strife between McCain and Thompson."

"Despite outspending his rivals by huge margins throughout the primaries,
(Mitt Romney, Carpetbagger UT,CA,MA,NH,Mexico) lost Iowa, South Carolina, Florida and California.
The only primaries he won were in Michigan, where Dad was governor; LDS states;
and a few states on Super Tuesday in which his California-obsessed rivals
couldn't spare the cash to advertise.
Only John Connolly in 1968 had a worse cash-to-delegates ratio.
And John McCain rightly did not like Romney's tactics during the primaries.
(W)hen (Romney's early leads) started slipping away, he resorted to unfair,
distorted, scorched-earth negative ads, betting that his opponents couldn't
afford to spend enough for the truth to catch up to his charges."
[Romney: A Mistake for McCain, 7/23/2008, Dick Morris]

That might be true of Palin or might not, but it more than describes David Frum's behavior over the years.

That's hard to believe. How many people have DSM-IV handy or know what it is?

‘No wonder they can’t win elections. They are forgetting who the REAL enemy is.’

In the mean time, Joe Biden gets a pass. That’s why I roll my eyes at all of these anti-Palin stories. McCain picked her!!! Yet, his judgement isn’t being questioned at all. It’s all Sarah’s fault, right? She wasn’t good enough when compared to Joe ‘The Sheriff’ Biden. LOL. This is why the MSM is so up in arms about Republicans becoming more ‘moderate’. They saw how well it worked for the GOP in 2008, and they know there’s no better way to destroy the party than to hope we run a McCain in every election from now until the end of time.

May want to pass that on to Mitt...

Not that it matters since he is doing exactly what Mitt would want...

Schmidt was importuned by several of the Republican aspirants for president earlier this year. (Mitt Romney sent him an antique chair to symbolize a seat at the table.) As a longtime admirer of McCain, he agreed initially to advise him from afar.

http://news.muckety.com/2008/08/26/steve-schmidt-aka-the-bullet-takes-aim-at-obamas-strengths/4742

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