Newsweek magazine’s “Special Election Project” is coming out today through Friday, and if the next two installments of the 50,000-word piece are as meaty as today’s — oooo. The magazine’s reporters got to gather behind-the-scenes skinny on the presidential campaigns as long as they agreed not to publish it until after Election Day. And I must say, the summary at the first link above makes quite a case that Sarah Palin was a much worse problem for Camp McCain than we’ve previously understood. Samples:
Wasilla hillbillies in Neiman Marcus
… Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family–clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.
Don’t tell Daddy!
McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.
You’re not the boss of me
Palin launched her attack on Obama’s association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain’s advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.
Let a bunch of it hang out
At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys’ club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said.
Palin’s Irregulars
The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. “Why would they try to make people hate us?” Michelle asked a top campaign aide.
Much more there, including the major cyber-attack both campaigns suffered (and Camp Obama figured must be coming from the Russians or Chinese); the second link takes you to the opening chapter on the Obama campaign.
I think you (and others) are still being waay too critical of Palin. I understand having differences of opinion. But these attempts to demonize her, even after the election, are more signs of obsession.
McCain did not lose this race because of Palin. While I don’t think she ultimately helped McCain, I don’t think she hurt him either (pretty much the same deal with Biden and Obama). She brought as many voters to the table for McCain as she turned away. She did what she was supposed to do —energize the base of the GOP.
Ultimately, after all the hoopla , this election was all about Obama v McCain. And the economic crisis tilted the race in favor of Obama by shifting the focus of the voters to the economy (where Obama was stronger) and due to McCain’s awkward, self-inflicted, unforced errors in responding to it. Its really not any more complicated than that. Those who really despise and hate Palin, weren’t going to vote for McCain anyway. Attempting to pin the loss on her is disingenuous.
BTW: I don’t have a problem with a candidate spending money for clothes they need for a campaign, and really can’t understand all this hysterical nonsense about her buying clothes for her and her family. I would imagine that the clothing tab for Hillary, Obama, Michelle, Joe, and others in and affected by the campaign, was pretty hefty. With all the necessary public appearances all over the country, sometimes multiple times per day, it is understandable. Just part of the cost of running for a national public office like president and vice-president.
“She brought as many voters…..as she turned away.” –afotl @ 1.
So why didn’t McCain pick someone who wouldn’t have turned away any voters?
Seems to me that Biden didn’t turn away any voters in The Democratic Party.
Did anyone notice the body language of Palin and McCain during the concession speech last night? She stood so far away that it made me wonder if they had had a fight or if she was visibly trying to distance herself from him.
I did notice that confounded. I also noted that the First Dude looked pissed. That may have just been his way of controlling his emotions but it sure came across to me as angry.
Well, if this tattle to Newsweek is any indication, the Camp McCain wrecking crew intends to do a much more thorough job on the Palins than it could on Obama.
Classic. The folks in charge of Camp McCain do a poor job down the stretch, fail to raise certain real issues on substantive matters and then throw Sarah under the bus to cover themselves and their future careers.
Phantom, Biden didn’t bring any new voters in with him. He was just a safe, nonfactor.
I just saw a clip from a Palin interview, she said I can’t be blamed for “MCCAIN’S DEFEAT.” I swear, that’s twisted. In her mind it was not her who was defeated, it wasn’t McCain/Palin who was defeated it was only McCain who was defeated. Palin was not.
More shoes are gonna drop in this decompression chamber than Palin bought on the Republican-credit-card-clothing spree.
High-level sources in the McCain campaign are now saying that Palin is unable to recite her times tables up to even six. When they asked her to name the primary colors she came up with only three, though that included pink.
Asked a question about organic chemistry, Palin said sex is a private matter.
This gift will keep on giving.
“I don’t have a problem with a candidate spending money for clothes they need for a campaign, and really can’t understand all this hysterical nonsense about her buying clothes for her and her family.” – afoth @1
Hysterical nonsense? Not hardly, when working class families are struggling to fill the gas tank, struggling to pay their utility bills, keep food on the table, working two jobs….spending $150,000 on clothes is EXCESSIVE for anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Not to mention, her being billed as your “regular hockey mom” – just doesn’t fly.
If you don’t get THAT, well, you just don’t get IT.
AFOTL @1: re. Palin not costing votes. My 85 year old mother called me from KY this evening and one of the things we discussed was the election. She said she was embarrassed to see KY be the first state declared for McCain. I said Mom are you telling me you voted for a black man for President? She said “I sure did”.
I said Mom have you forgotten you don’t like black people? She replied “I like them them better than that cheap trollop McCain picked.” She went on to say that Palin was a disgrace to women and it showed McCain to be a bad decision maker and “just proves there is no fool like an old fool.”
So AFOTL, chalk up up one vote for Obama to Palin.
Hmm. CNN sez Rick Davis fired Scheunemann last week for “positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain’s campaign message” (they caught him tattling trash on Nicolle Wallace to reporters).
Now of course McCain was nuts to listen to a neocon like Scheunemann at all — but he had for years. Picture the administration that would have made: A week before the election, the senior foreign policy advisor gets fired for feuding with the "message" team. Okay, Scheunemann’s a putz, but what was McCain gonna do for a transition team if he’d won? The mind boggles.
As McCain said in his concession speech, the fault is his.
As a Democrat and staunch supporter of President-Elect Obama, I very much want Sarah Palin to be the nominee of the Republican Party in 2012. For this reason, I say let’s all defend her, encourage her, keep her in the news.
By all means, make her the standard-bearer going forward.
I ain’t saying she should be the standard bearer for the party, the nominee in 2012, nor have I ever said that she would have been my pick — I had barely even heard of her before she was selected.
My defense of her (if you can call it that) is to this obsession some have to demonize this woman for her conservative political views (she was the only true conservative on either ticket). Disagreement, even passionate disagreement, is understandable. This piling- on feeding freenzy , still ongoing even after the election, is quite another —especially when it involves such relatively trivial things like clothing, etc.
That is all I am going to say about it. The election is over. Obama defeated McCain. If some want to “blame” McCain’s defeat on Palin, that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I just don’t agree with it.
There are bigger fish to fry. Real issues to be addressed. Palin’s clothing expenses are not even on my list. I seriously doubt such things are on Obama’s list either — Lord, I hope not. He has a LOT of campaign promises to deliver on to the masses — none of which have anything to do with Sarah Palin.
I believe what Sarah Palin did that pissed off so many was try to fake her way though discussions of complex issues with chutzpah alone. Galling to Republicans who knew other VP choices would have been better, and more intellectually honest. It’s Republicans who are attacking her now, and blaming her now, not Democrats.