Knowing what we do of Sarah Palin today, would anyone think it a wise decision to pair her with an ex-White House staffer out of CBS as her key contact for the entire 2008 campaign? The very thought of it is laughable. Yet, that's precisely what the campaign did, because it's what you would do with just another political up and comer looking to break out nationally over night before landing in Washington, DC.
They struck gold with the pick of Sarah Palin. Had she been managed and employed effectively - and if McCain hadn't made the disastrous decision to suspend and return to Washington, where Obama played him like a chump during the economic crisis - they might actually have pulled out a win. That, despite McCain's unsuitability for the office, not because he was the least bit well suited for it.
But like dead pan miners who struck it rich, they ran off to town, got drunk in the saloon, losing everything in a card game, before being shot and left for dead in an alley. Hey, it's a tough world out there and politics is one of the toughest of all. And don't forget, we're talking Chicago politics on top of that. But it isn't as though anyone deserves any sympathy here. And that includes Sarah Palin.
She's young enough to be or become just about whatever she wants to be in the world, is promoting a sure to remain for a while best seller and is well on her way to becoming a millionaire, if not already there. There are likely far worse fates awaiting too many a young gal from Wasilla. She'll be fine, in fact, more than fine in the end.
Whoever made the decisions inside the McCain campaign, at times it seemed to vary almost daily between Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt, more than enough bad ones were made to lose. Most of them had nothing to do with Sarah Palin. She wasn't the exception in that sense, she's simply the biggest player that proves the rule. It's only natural that she would be getting the most attention as regards what they did wrong. But picking her may have been the only major thing they did right after over-celebrating their primary win and taking the summer off. Obama was already poised to all but crush them by the time we got into the Fall.
That we're discussing her in that context is only because of the DC outsider gold she turned out to be. That McCain and company couldn't appreciate the value of what they had found, let alone know how to manage it, is not Sarah Palin's fault. That she has survived and even thrived in some ways is proof that she doesn't and likely never did need them to succeed.
After all, Palin's still going strong, while they're lying irrelevant and mostly politically dead out back in the alley somewhere in Chicago of all places. Sarah Palin's creating serious problems on a regular basis for the very people that won the election and they're non-factors and actors in America's more serious political discourse.
It's disappointing, though not surprising that McCain would scurry out to protect the standard political rats now stuck on a sunken ship with him; that's simply the way it's done in Washington, DC. You protect the people closest and most loyal to you, no matter what. I believe the reality few can appreciate here is, Palin is not the exception to the rule when it comes to McCain/Palin 2008. The campaign had similar problems at most levels and in most areas, ones that had nothing to do with Palin, or McCain - except to the extent they were driven by his personality and Senator's sense of the world. And those were not things that would ever have landed him in the White House in 2009 under almost any circumstances.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday strongly defended the top advisers from his 2008 presidential campaign in the face of sharp criticism from his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin.
The people who know the most about McCain/Palin 2008 aren't the people willing to go on record for the media. While the top political players have their respective careers, for better or worse - for most on the campaign, to talk now would be a career ender. So all we are getting is two of the most polarized views from the top. In my experience, that never is where the real story rests. But it's all that we've got. Make of it what you will, I'd suggest not too much.
Most everyone already knowns which, or whose side they're on. Whatever the futures of the various players, any back and forth doesn't exactly help either side. Given what Palin endured from the media and by way of an overall poorly run presidential campaign, she has every right to put her views on the record before moving on. As for the others on what was already an all but doomed campaign when she joined it, one that was ultimately lost in DC because of two economic meltdowns, America's and McCain's, and not Sarah Palin, the less they say the better off they'll be at this point. Unfortunately, that lesson seems lost on some rather typical DC talking heads.
