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On the heels of Newt Gingrich’s trouncing of Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary, Republican Party brass are privately expressing deep concerns that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s high unfavorable rating in national polls could prove catastrophic to the so-called “down ballot”–the House and Senate races under the presidential race–and may even threaten the Republican Party’s control of the House of Representatives...

Schmidt: "Not only are we not moving toward a coalescing of support with the establishment of Newt Gingrich, we're probably moving toward a declaration of war on Newt Gingrich by the Republican establishment. And if Newt Gingrich is able to win the Florida primary, you will see a panic and a meltdown of the Republican establishment that is beyond my ability to articulate in the English language. People will go crazy," And you will have this five week period until the Super Tuesday states that will be just as unpredictable, tumultuous as any period in modern American politics. It will...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Steve Schmidt's out there again. This is the guy that ran McCain's campaign. Let me find it. It's audio sound bite number nine. Last night, PMSNBC, special coverage of the Hawkeye Cauci. Steve Schmidt's the guest, and the question: "Would the old conservatives who hold a lot of money embrace Rick Santorum? They can't stand Romney. Richard Viguerie told me, 'Not Mitt now or ever,' so who?" SCHMIDT: There will absolutely be a constituency of people out there that rally around the alternative to Mitt Romney, and you saw it absolutely in, uhh, 2008, uhh, with Senator...

GOP political consultant Steve Schmidt, one of the toughest guys in the business and the guru behind the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign, said that early polls suggest Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are likely no longer “plausible” candidates after tonight. And he told MSNBC it increasingly looks like former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum “may well emerge as the chief alternative to Mitt Romney.” With Santorum showing strong in early exit polls, Schmidt — an MSNBC analyst — told the network moments ago that Santorum is “going to have to make a lot of decisions very quickly if he comes...

Rachel Maddow broke some big news on her MSNBC show Sept. 28 – and she wants you to know. She mentioned several times during the program that she was reporting "important real news," "important political news," and so on. Here's my quick rewrite of this earth-shattering development: Two people best known for working on John McCain's failed presidential campaign in 2008 say selecting Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate was "a mistake." Here's the problem with this being big news: Both Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager, and Nicole Wallace, a top aide to the campaign, were actually involved in...

Thursday’s Republican presidential debate showed that the race is now down to a two-candidate contest, John McCain’s campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt said minutes after the candidates’ forum ended. Rick Perry and Mitt Romney are the only two with a chance, Schmidt said on MSNBC after the debate at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, Calif. “As the campaign progresses you will see an increasing focus on the two of them,” said Schmidt, the token Republican on the left-leaning channel’s after-debate show. Romney, Schmidt said, “did a very good job. He was poised and made no mistakes."

Has anybody else been told not to run for President, besides Palin, ever? Palin been told not to run by the media and by Conservatives. In the last 40 years, who else has been told they would be a better kingmaker?

MEGHAN MCCAIN: I Expect My Family And Sarah Palin To Be Nothing Short Of Crucified By HBO's 'GAME CHANGE' HBO is adapting a miniseries based on Game Change, the book about the 2008 election. But as Hollywood casts liberal actors to play all the parts, Meghan McCain doubts that it will be an accurate portrayal of what actually happened. Game Change, the infamous bestseller written by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, has plagued anyone directly associated with the 2008 election cycle. The first time I heard about the book was within weeks after Obama was elected—my former press person...

Ed Harris has been cast as John McCain and Woody Harrelson as his adviser in HBO's upcoming TV movie, "Game Change," The Hollywood Reporter said. Julianne Moore is to play Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican presidential nominee McCain's running mate in the 2008 U.S. election. Harrelson's will play Steve Schmidt, McCain's senior campaign strategist, in the small-screen adaptation of the book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the entertainment industry trade newspaper said Friday.

It's the fall of 2006, and the midst of a very intense General Election here in California... a decision was made by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, his campaign manager Steve Schmidt, and then State-GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim. You see, while the Governor's re-election campaign was going well but the Victory Program was rapidly running out of money heading into the final month. Then came the big decision -- to literally "bet the bank" and have the State GOP take out a THREE MILLION DOLLAR LOAN thus providing the necessary injection of cash into the CRP coffers to run a full campaign...

When Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) agreed to attend a fundraising dinner in Washington for the Log Cabin Republicans, many social conservatives were outraged. The group has long urged the GOP to be more accepting of gay rights, and some Republicans worried that the appearance by Cornyn, a party leader in Congress, would further legitimize its views. The senator not only attended the Log Cabin event at the Capitol Hill Club last Wednesday, he also accepted an award from the group, becoming the highest-ranking Republican to do so. After his speech, though, the group's president, R. Clarke Cooper, privately told Cornyn...

David Plouffe's days of spending time with his family may be nearing an end again. His president may need him in his 2012 re-election campaign. Plouffe, who was the manager of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, says Obama hasn't yet given a thought to winning a second term, and that the president hasn't started to build the massive campaign machinery he'll need to compete against whoever the Republicans nominate. "I can tell you that the president is not concerned with his reelection," Plouffe writes in the new paperback version of his book on the 2008 election, The Audacity to Win. "We...

Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt tells Sam Stein of the Huffington Post why gay marriage is now a conservative cause: "There is a strong conservative case to be made in favor of gay marriage," former McCain campaign manager and fellow same-sex marriage fundraiser Steve Schmidt told the Huffington Post on Tuesday. "Marriage is an institution that strengthens and stabilizes society. It is an institution that has the capacity to bring profound joy and happiness to people and it is a matter of equality and keeping faith of one of the charters of the nation, the right to live your...

NEW YORK – Will the Republican Party follow Ken Mehlman’s lead and step out on gay rights? Historian Timothy McCarthy imagines a future where the GOP starts talking like Harvey Milk. Every queer knows that some of the biggest homophobes are closet cases. Simply recall the names of Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, or George “rent-boy” Rekers. The latest Republican to move from the closet to the Log Cabin is Ken Mehlman, the architect of George W. Bush’s successful 2004 reelection campaign and former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Judging by the current political climate, Mehlman’s coming out...

There were other things I wanted to write about this evening, but now I feel like I’m obligated to write a society-page feature because the Drama Queen (Ken Mehlman) decided to make her debut at the cotillion. (...) Excuse my derision, and denounce me as suffering from “homophobia” — Can I get an SSI disability check for that? Would Medicaid pay for treatment? — if that satisfies your craving for a sense of moral superiority. You’re not going to guilt-trip me into pulling punches. I’m heaping the most vicious ridicule I can on this twerp for a reason: To discourage...

Former Republican National Committee chairman and Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman has announced publicly that he is gay, CBS News chief political consultant and politics editor for The Atlantic Marc Ambinder reports. "It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," Mehlman said. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I...

Former Bush II operative and RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. People are talking about it from almost every imaginable angle. Why was he Republican? Why did the Republicans want him? How did such an allegedly anti-gay party as the GOP ever allow him to reach such high office? But they don’t ask the important question: Why is this a news story? In these United States, around one or two percent of the public is gay. So one or two of every hundred people isn’t straight. Why on earth should an announcement about one of them – someone whom less...

If the Republican nomination in 2012 shapes up as a two-way race between former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, expect fireworks to fly. Last week, GOP primary voters caught a glimpse of how things might play out between the two Republican heavyweights when anonymous aides from both camps exchanged pointedly personal barbs. The scuffle began when Time magazine’s Mark Halperin anonymously quoted one Romney aide in a column last Thursday, blasting Palin for her lack of substance, “She’s not a serious human being.” Another aide to the former Massachusetts governor ripped into Palin, arguing, “If...

Mitt Romney tweets: "TIME says unnamed advisors disparaged @SarahPalinUSA. Anonymous numbskulls. She’s proven her smarts; they’ve disproven theirs."

Romney-ites attack Palin--anonymously, as is their wont TIME’s Mark Halperin claims that some unnamed Romney staffers goofed on Sarah Palin. Was one of them ex-McCain head, Steve Schmidt? Is Schmidt auditioning for a job in 2012? Does the Pope wear a beanie? ROMNEY’S CUTE ATTACKS CONTINUE IT’S ALWAYS AN “UNNAMED AIDE” WHEN ROMNEY ATTACKS PALIN Is Uber-RINO political operative, Steve Schmidt, working undercover for the Romney campaign these days? Who else but former sour grapes-munching McCain staff losers–quite a few who were swooped up by Mittsy-boy Romney–would have dreamed up the following? From Beyond Palin: Assessing the Rest of the...

Even as the starting bell rings for the first round of the Republican presidential free-for-all, we’ve got a couple of anonymous Mitt Romney advisors coming off the top rope, aiming elbow smashes at Sarah Palin’s back. They said she’s “not a serious human being” and “if she’s standing up there in a debate, and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she’s in trouble.” This childish and incoherent nonsense does a lot more damage to Mitt Romney than Sarah Palin. What, exactly, are the criteria for being considered a “serious human being?” Should she just give up her half-hearted...

Sarah Palin's recent web video making a pitch to conservative women may have again shifted the political spotlight to the former governor of Alaska, but more than a half dozen other GOP hopefuls are toying seriously with a presidential run this summer. ......................................................... Still, few express much regard for Palin's ultimate chances. One adviser to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and, by traditional standards, the putative 2012 frontrunner, says of Palin, "She's not a serious human being." Another Romney intimate warns, "If she's standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she's...

Huckabee’s taken potshots at her from time to time, but between this fusillade from unnamed Mitt advisors and the furious counterattack on Romney at Conservatives 4 Palin, I’d say that the 2012 primary is now, at long last, officially on. In the immortal words of Greg Stillson, “The missiles are flying. Hallelujah.” Still, few express much regard for Palin’s ultimate chances. One adviser to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and, by traditional standards, the putative 2012 frontrunner, says of Palin, “She’s not a serious human being.” Another Romney intimate warns, “If she’s standing up there in a debate and...

Like it or not, the 2012 presidential campaign season is already underway. Right now, we're in the nascent stage of the cycle where folks are asking: Will he/she run? A new 8,300-word New Yorker profile asks that question of Mike Huckabee. Among the nuggets in the piece (some of which we had already heard): -- Huckabee is now registered to vote in Florida, not his native Arkansas -- He has gained weight since his '08 campaign days, though he doesn't weigh the 300-odd pounds he once weighed -- Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt says some VERY nice things about...

The New Yorker today discovers Mike Huckabee, but also astutely picks up the center of his political attraction to some Republicans right now, which is that he neutralizes Palin: In some ways, Huckabee seems like a promising candidate for 2012: a squeaky-clean family man and bona-fide Christian who loves to talk. His communication is folksy but fluid; he never seems flummoxed, like George W. Bush, or befuddled, like John McCain, or unprepared, like Sarah Palin. “If we're running a race against their most articulate guy,” Steve Schmidt, John McCain's former campaign manager, told me, referring to President Obama, “we should...

According to a top strategist in the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, Sarah Palin believed that the decision to pick her as the Arizona Republican’s running mate was actually made by Almighty God. Translated into the logic of an Associated Press report, this political theology sounded like this. “In an interview with the CBS news magazine ‘60 Minutes,’ Steve Schmidt described Palin as ‘very calm — nonplused’ after McCain met with her at his Arizona ranch just before putting her on the Republican ticket. ... Schmidt said he asked Palin about her serenity in the face of becoming ‘one...

Steve Schmidt spent 10 weeks building up Sarah Palin, and the two of them have spent a good part of the past 14 months tearing each other down. A losing campaign always brings out the knives, but they are usually wielded in the shadows. The pure spectacle of a former campaign strategist going on national television to trash the candidate whose image he once stage-managed — as Schmidt did Sunday on “60 Minutes” — is virtually unprecedented.

In her new role as a Fox News Channel contributor, Sarah Palin blasted a “60 Minutes” report on her knowledge during the 2008 presidential campaign. She appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor,” the top-rated program in cable news. The segment on the CBS newsmagazine suggested that she didn’t know the difference between North and South Korea. “I had been warned, you know, don’t watch,” Palin said of the segment. “It’s a bunch of B.S. from [Steve] Schmidt and from of those.” Schmidt was the manager of Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, and Palin was McCain’s running mate. She said the Korea...

The Republicans need to learn one thing before February. If they keep sending out their longtime apparatchik Steve Schmidt as designated Single Combat Warrior against Sarah Palin, they will lose. His recent comments on “60 Minutes” about Palin’s statement that her selection as John McCain’s VP was part of “God’s plan” was — nudge, nudge — pneumonic scorn that, in the context of the other reports edited by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, quite obviously intended to caricature Palin’s simple and sincere expression of Christian faith to an “upscale” secular audience. It does, in turn, caricature the same simple (in the Tolstoyan...

In one of the hilarious "Saturday Night Live" send-ups of Sarah Palin, Tina Fey -- playing the then-vice presidential candidate -- says, "If I'm not going to the White House I'm either running in four years or I'm going to be a white Oprah." (VIDEO AT LINK) With today's announcement that Palin has signed on with Fox News Channel, the former Alaska governor is potentially on her way to achieving that goal. As The Post's Howard Kurtz notes, Palin will be able to take her Facebook floggings of political opponents (and Levi Johnston) to a much bigger platform. Doing TV,...

Sarah Palin is scheduled to speak at the Southern Young Republican Conference in April. Her book tour managed to avoid “blue” parts of the country for “red’. She is sitting on a minimum of 6 million dollars as the first installment on her book. Individuals waited hours in awful weather to have her sign a copy of the book. She has made the requisite non denials of her intentions vis a vis running for President. The Dems were using Alaska’s ethics regulations to make her life miserable and sink any chance she had for national prominence. Their antics simply made...

Here is video of former McCain Campaign Chief Strategist Steve Schmidt on "60 Minutes" last night, where he claims McCain decided to choose Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate at the last minute as a replacement for preferred choice Sen. Joe Lieberman. Schmidt says the decision was made late Sunday night just before the beginning of the Republican National Convention in 2008 as they sat around a table and ate "deep fried burritos." Schmidt essentially trashes Palin in the interview, saying she knew little about Foreign Policy and other issues. He did say she was a "quick study." He...

As cynical as I have become about the news media, even I never thought I would see the day where "60 Minutes" provided far more comedy than "Saturday Night Live," but Sunday’s edition of the formerly respected news magazine gave the educated viewer infinitely more laughs than SNL delivered (although Charles Barkley’s pathetic performance may have still somehow been even worse than that of Anderson Cooper). Specifically I am referring to the segment that was allegedly devoted to the new book “Game Change” about the 2008 Presidential election. Quite simply, (partly because it dealt with subjects about which I have...

John McCain’s top campaign strategist said in an interview Sunday that Sarah Palin was dishonest as the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee and that her untruths have done long-term damage to her public image. “There were numerous instances that she said things that were – that were not accurate that ultimately, the campaign had to deal with,” said Steve Schmidt in an interview broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “And that opened the door to criticism that she was being untruthful and inaccurate. And I think that is something that continues to this day.”

An adviser to John McCain who was preparing Sarah Palin for the vice presidential debate became so worried at Palin's weak performance in mock debates that he placed a panicked phone call to Steve Schmidt, the McCain campaign manager. "He told us the debate was going to be a debacle of historic and epic proportions...she was not focused...not engaged," Schmidt says in an interview. Specifically, "Palin had a reflexive tendency to refer to Biden as "O'Biden," says Schmidt, a tick that he said had to be corrected before the internationally televised debate in October 2008. The fix: "It was multiple...

Here is video of former John McCain Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt on "60 Minutes" trying to hurt Gov. Sarah Palin by saying she was repeatedly "inaccurate" in statements she made during the campaign, which forced the McCain campaign to have to correct her statements. Schmidt is reportedly pushing a new book coming out about the campaign. Listening to this pathetic jerk makes it very clear why the McCain Campaign had no chance for victory. Schmidt was the wrong person to run McCain's campaign, and knows he is finished as a Campaign Manager for GOP candidates. He's trying now to cash...

I have never understood the Sarah Palin attraction. Sorry. I just don’t I am a die-hard conservative, but Sarah Palin does not do it for me. Never did. When she was first announced as John McCain’s running mate, I cringed, but then reluctantly understood. This was a political “Hail Mary” pass for the McCain campaign. Honestly, what could the poor man do from where he stood in the polls and in the modern American environment in which he was nominated? Answer: apparently little, aside from dumbing himself down to the political environment of the times—i.e., try to match the idiocy...

Sarah Palin finally dishes up the goods on the failed Campaign. I tend not to follow political events that have no bearing on me or the future of the country. So I have pretty much ignored the flap between Palin and McCain until now. But I will weigh in on some key issues that I think are relevant and why I believe McCain and his political strategist Steve Schmidt need to shut the hell up. McCain lost and will no longer lead this country in any way shape or form. Palin may still and will be a force in this...

Before Sarah Palin's highly-anticipated book, "Going Rogue," goes on sale this week, it has already generated controversy, skepticism and blowback. In portions that have been leaked in advance, and in interviews Palin has given in advance of the book's debut Tuesday, the former Alaska governor criticized senior aides to her 2008 running mate John McCain, which prompted retaliation from McCain's campaign staff — some speaking on the record, some anonymously. Of Palin's book, Steven Schmidt, McCain's chief strategist, told CBS News, "It's fiction, and it's not true." "This is Sarah Palin's turn to get even, as it were," said CBS...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - John McCain's former presidential campaign manager Steve Schmidt is the latest McCain adviser to cry foul over accusations Sarah Palin has penned in her yet to be released memoir "Going Rogue." Excerpts obtained by The Huffington Post characterize Schmidt in an unfavorable light, particularly in reference to the prank phone call Palin received from someone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Right away, the phones started ringing," Palin writes. "One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. 'How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A former senior campaign adviser to John McCain(who would only speak on the condition of anonymity)is rejecting Sarah Palin’s claim that she was billed for the costs of vetting her before she was selected as the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Be afraid, be very afraid of John McCain's presidential campaign manager, Steve Schmidt who has been bashing conservative talk radio, and Christians, along with Sarah Palin ever since 2008. Despite his Mr. Clean looks, I felt like taking a shower after hearing only a few minutes of his monotonous speech on CSPAN TV last week. No wonder the honorable John McCain lost the presidency, having been handled by a guy who began his political career by helping Bill Bradley, was complimented by the NY Times, honors the Log Cabin Republicans (I don't want to know what they do with their...

She's poised to become the best-selling author in the United States, has a devoted base of conservative supporters and is considered a front-runner to lead the Republicans into the next election in 2012 - and yet key party strategists are tormented by the popularity of Sarah Palin. The very notion of a Palin candidacy has been derided in recent days by some of the brightest minds in the Republican party even as the former governor of Alaska outlines her policies on Afghanistan, energy and other issues of national importance. "Were she to be the nominee, we could have a catastrophic...

Just off the CNN Political Ticker: Sarah Palin is remaining silent about a sharp jab directed at her Friday by former John McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, who predicted that a potential Palin presidential bid in 2012 would be "catastrophic." A spokeswoman for the former Alaska governor said Palin is holding her fire until her new book is released next month. "The governor will write about all of this in her book," Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said in an e-mail, referring to the internal fighting that marred the final weeks of McCain's president bid. "There will be plenty of time...

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Sarah Palin begins to build her network of advisors Politico's Ben Smith reports: Randy Scheunemann, has emerged as an advisor to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as she attempts to build a serious public profile and begins to build a network of aides and advisors typical of a national politician. Scheunemann confirmed this evening that he's with Palin in Hong Kong, where she is delivering a paid speech at a conference hosted by the brokerage house CLSA, which has in the past heard keynotes from Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Rich Lowry recounts how the McCain...

People like John McCain and others who have been part of the self-absorbed, navel-gazing and corrupt Washington environment for a quarter century no doubt resent someone not "of them." But it is indeed odd when Sarah Palin, a bright, shining light for conservatives remains the prime target of the existing machine, while Mark Sanford and other hypocritical liars are serenaded as getting a raw deal by the very public daughter of a defacto leader of the party. For some reason, Meghan McCain, writing in The Daily Beast, seems to think adulterous politicians, like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, should be...

Just spoke to a consultant plugged in with a non-McCain Republican presidential candidate from 2008. His first words: “Steve Schmidt wins.” “I don’t think she’s toast (for future office). But this makes it more difficult. I’m trying to think of a candidate who launched a serious national bid after one term or less*… I guess the last one would be Romney, and he had done one full term.” On the theory that the scrutiny of her children was the straw that broke the camel's back, the consultant said, “From the interaction I’ve had with her, that would make some sense.”...

Internal campaign e-mails exchanged three weeks before Election Day offer a rare look at just how frustrated then Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had become with the manner in which top McCain campaign aides were handling her candidacy. The e-mails, obtained exclusively, also highlight the power struggle and thinly veiled acrimony that pervaded the relationship between Palin and the campaign's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt. The episode in question began when an investigative report published on the left-leaning Web site Salon.com raised questions about Palin's relationship with members of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) when she was mayor of Wasilla....

Alaskan Governor and GOP 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin may be nice looking, but she sure wasn’t a very good candidate is the bottom line of Vanity Fair’s 9,920-word profile about her released Tuesday. The comments about her beauty weren't entirely complimentary, either. Vanity Fair writer Todd S. Purdum said her looks probably hurt her as much it helped win voters during the campaign. The brunt of his article, the notion that she was never suited to run nationally, relied heavily on unattributed quotes from McCain campaign staffers who felt she wasn’t up to snuff and refused properly study...

Alaska's lipstick-wearing pit-bull is a "Little Shop of Horrors." That's how one longtime friend and campaign trail companion of John McCain, the vanquished 2008 GOP presidential nominee, described veep nominee Sarah Palin. In an expansive story in the August edition of Vanity Fair, a slew of senior members of McCain's campaign team told reporter Todd S. Purdum that they suffer a kind of survivor's guilt following the 2008 presidential election.