How Her Mind Works (Mark McKinnon on Sarah Palin)

TheDailyBeast.com ^ | 7/6/2009 | Mark McKinnon

[SonOfDarkSkies]

A few words about Sarah Palin: She is one of the most fascinating women I have ever met. She crackles with energy like a live electrical wire and on first meeting gets about three inches from your face. Her instant subliminal message is: “I don’t know you very well, but I’m very clear about who I am.” She reeks of moxie and self confidence. And she’s fearless.

Well, she was mostly fearless when I intersected with her. But, she was also a week out from a nationally televised debate with Joe Biden, and she knew she was in trouble. She knew she wasn’t prepared. And she knew it would be difficult, maybe impossible to be ready. And the brief session I witnessed, verified as much and I was convinced the debate would be a disaster. But, despite the crushingly stressful situation in which she found herself, and despite the aching vulnerability, she squared up in her uniquely Palin way and made it clear to all of us in the room that she was going to bear down, get ready, and was not, under any circumstances, going to let John McCain down. But, I frankly thought she would.

[alicewonders]

I am now finally convinced that the entire McCain campaign was a mole. And to be frank, either one of two things occurred. Either John McCain is a traitor and ran a “Mole” campaign, or an imbecile who hired nothing but Democrats to run his campaign.

I think you're right on the money, and your conclusions draw one to think beyond:

* How did such a man become our candidate without the complicit cooperation of the RNC?

* Why WAS Palin the VP pick? No one could have foreseen the powerhouse she turned out to be and it seems an uncharacteristic pick for McCain - I can't help but have this nagging feeling that someone saw her as a force to be dealt with in the future. Maybe by throwing her out there, totally unprepared in their minds - throwing a sheep to the wolves, it would eliminate her name from future consideration.

Of course, we can see now, that such thinking (if it did exist) totally backfired on them & now we have Sarah unleashed.

In my mind, Palin was an answer to our prayers. The LORD works in mysterious ways.

[alicewonders]

Sorry, my reply in #21 was meant for your post. I need more coffee!

[Carley]

And if people are dumb enough to believe me.........

[gogeo]

Diamonds are Forever...with Jill St. John.

[newfreep]

That’s it! Thanks for the answer...fell in love with JSJ and her lovely pair of... :-)

[Al B.]

Mark McKinnon is best buds with David Axelrod from back when they worked on the campaign of Houston Mayor Bob Lanier in the '90s. Rahm Emanuel worked on that campaign as well.

Having said that, I found his take from his 3-hr. session with Palin extremely interesting. Thanks for posting this.

[Al B.]

FYI...

[Oztrich Boy]

Political Compass is crap

Crappish anyway. It positions me (despite thinking most of the quaestions were stupid) about where these tests usually do.

But I find it hinky that the only two libertarian conservatives they find are Milton Friedman and me.

[Al B.]

But damned if she didn’t. I watched the debate on television from Austin and was stunned. The difference in the person I’d seen just five days earlier and the woman I saw step onto the stage with Joe Biden was a complete transformation.

John O'Sullivan, friend and former advisor to Maggie Thatcher, said virtually the same thing about Palin when he drew parallels between Palin and Thatcher in the WSJ. He said they both had the ability to rise to the big occasions. He called it "the mark of a star".

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Great article!

It's so timely in fact (considering it was written last year), I'm going to post it on my blog later today.

Thx much!