Day: September 3, 2008

Top GOP Operatives Caught on Tape Trashing Palin Pick

Jon Ponder

This may be the first time you’ve ever heard Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan not lying — and wouldn’t you know that they only speak the truth when they think the microphone is off:
“It’s over.”
— Peggy Noonan

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we’ll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We’ll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she’s the right woman for the job Up next, one man who’s already convinced and he’ll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman. (cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys — this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And —

PN: It’s over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she’s never looked comfortable about this —

MM: They’re all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me– political bullshit about narratives —

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

Poll: Palin Not a Chick Magnet for McCain Campaign

Buck Banks

From Political Wire:

A new survey conducted for EMILY’s List suggests Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not helping the Republican ticket with female voters. Among all women surveyed, Obama-Biden leads McCain-Palin, 53 percent to 35 percent.

When asked how the running mates were picked, half of those surveyed said Obama chose Biden based on his experience, while 29 percent said he was chosen for political reasons. Meanwhile, 20 percent said McCain chose Palin for experience and 59% said his pick was for political purposes.

Key finding: A 55 percent majority of women voters who backed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary say that Palin’s inclusion on the ticket makes them less likely to vote for McCain; just 9 percent say her presence on the ticket makes them more likely to support McCain.

Will Palin Choice Be McCain’s Macaca Moment?

Jon Ponder

If they weren’t Republicans, you could almost feel sorry for them. Inside the GOP convention hall — the ultimate dittohead echo chamber — party faithful in St. Paul seem to be blissfully unaware that a concensus is forming that Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for vice president, is irreparably flawed.
To gauge the level of panic in the McCain campaign, note that the news of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was timed to hit the airwaves just as Hurricane Gustav was making landfall near New Orleans.
But the real scandal here isn’t Palin’s thin resume, her ornamental status as what a commenter here described as McCain’s “trophy VP,” the ethics investigation into her personnel practices as governor, her past membership in the Alaska Independence Party, which treasonously promoted secession from the Union, or even the pregnancy of her 16 year old daughter despite Palin’s fervent, if fantastical, belief that abstinence is the only acceptable form of birth control.

The real scandal here is John McCain’s colossally bad judgment in what is universally regarded as any presidential nominee’s most important decision. It borders on an act of criminal negligence for a man who would be the oldest-ever first-term president to nominate as vice president someone as inexperienced as Sarah Palin, a former sports reporter and beauty queen with no foreign-relations experience — who just months ago admitted she had no idea what a vice president did every day.

Choosing Palin reveals that, despite his slogan of “country first,” politics trumps everything with McCain, including the security of the United States. It ought to be a career-killing moment, in the way that former Sen. George Allen’s revelatory use of the racial slur “macaca” ended his presidential ambitions.

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