Posted on 11/14/2009 10:07:41 AM PST by iowamark
Top aides to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign hit back at Sarah Palin Friday, after news reports revealed that the former vice presidential nominee’s soon-to-be-released book extensively criticizes the campaign’s press strategy – with many of its hardest shots aimed squarely at campaign manager Steve Schmidt.
Schmidt, she writes, was “grim-faced” and “cool,” and tried to pin the campaign’s troubles on what he claimed was Palin’s post-partum depression, and even went to so far as to try and dictate her diet.
According to excerpts published on the Huffington Post, Palin “took in his rotund physique and noted that he used nicotine to keep his own cognitive connections humming along.”
…
“I'm a forty-four year old, healthy, athletic woman raising five kids and governing a large state, I thought as his words faded into a background buzz. Sir, I really don't know you yet. But you've told me how to dress, what to say, who to talk to, a lot of people not to talk to, who my heroes are supposed to be and we're still losing. Now you're going to tell me what to eat?”
More generally, Palin uses the book to note the “jaded aura” of the "professional political caste" guiding McCain:
"But I did notice... funny things [about the handlers] that even Piper commented on — such as tumbling out of the bus in a pack, lighting cigarettes as they went so it looked like a walking smoke cloud with legs."
Palin also faults Schmidt for his penchant for profanity, writing that he warned her just before the vice-presidential campaign that “moderator Gwen Ifill is "going to f*** with you."
"I'm thinking, Why are you telling me this? Last minute... what's the point? And no more f-bombs around Piper, please?"
According to excerpts from copies obtained by media outlets, Palin charges that the staffers assigned to her by McCain’s team blocked her from speaking to the press aboard the campaign plane. And she asserts that former McCain communications aide Nicole Wallace ‘pushed’ her to do a September 2008 interview with CBS’s Katie Couric that resulted in serious damage to the former Alaska governor’s image.
“Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to the back of the aircraft and talk to the press,” Palin wrote, according to an excerpt that appeared Friday on the Drudge Report website. “At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on, [campaign aides] Tracey [Schmitt] or Tucker [Eskew] would call headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond, ‘No! Absolutely not—block her if she tries to go back.’”
The excerpt also described Wallace as having aggressively “pushed for Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News” because “Katie really needed a career boost.”
Palin’s tome also pins blame on the campaign for the decision to provide her and her family with a new $150,000 wardrobe, saying she was aghast at the price of the items provided. Writing about her speech at the Republican convention, she cracks, "The kids looked great — even in a bunch of borrowed clothes."
Former McCain strategist John Weaver slammed Palin for using the book for “petty and pathetic” score-settling.
“Sarah Palin reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie 'Harvey,' complete with imaginary conversations. All books like these are revisionist and self-serving, by definition,” Weaver wrote in an email to POLITICO. “But the score-settling by someone who wants to be considered a serious national player is petty and pathetic.”
“The problem wasn't who her interview was with, the problem was her interview,” he added. “Couric asked no trick questions. This just seems to be an attempt to obscure as bad a performance since Roger Mudd asked Ted Kennedy that simple question.”
Longtime McCain hand and former campaign manager Mark Salter offered a cooler response disputing Palin’s account, and told POLITICO in an email that it does not line up with his memory of events.
Explaining the campaign’s decision to limit press access as Election Day drew closer, Salter said that “after we had been criticized in the press for a lack of disciplined messaging earlier in the campaign when we provided frequent and unscheduled access to the candidate, we felt it necessary to adopt the same deliberativeness and discipline employed by our opponents and rely less on impromptu press conferences with our traveling press, and more on interviews arranged in advance so our candidates would have the same opportunity our opponents enjoyed to discuss and prepare for the interview.”
Reflecting on the first set of interviews Palin did as the GOP vice presidential nominee, Salter said that the sit downs were “discussed and agreed to by senior members of the campaign staff in consultation with the candidate” and that Wallace did not choose either the journalists or the outlets Palin spoke to.
“Nicolle Wallace, along with others, was tasked with helping the Governor prepare for some of her interviews. She did not decide which interview requests the candidates would accept. Nor was she tasked with securing the candidates’ agreement,” Salter said.
“Those decisions were made by campaign management in consultation with the candidates. Campaign management and the candidates agreed to multi-segment interviews so the Governor would maintain a presence in the media while she was in debate prep,” he added. “And to the best of my knowledge, any interviews the Governor had with the individuals she referred to were approved and arranged by the campaign management with her agreement.”
Palin did not respond to a request for comment.
“Unfortunately Palin is too radioactive”
I beg your pardon? Could we have a definition of your terms, please?
Unfortunately Palin is too radioactive to be a viable candidate in 2012. Not that I wish that but it just is.
*********************************************************
Your obsevation is a recipe for another disastrous defeat in 2012. Consider,
The radioactive charge will be front and center on any, let me repeat, any effective conservative Republican. The press will see to that. Let us instead use the Drive-by’s labeling. If the candidate is not radioactive he should be eliminated by us.
It would seem a good harbinger to be considered radioactive if you are running as a conservative Republican. Reagan was radioactive — Mccain not. Choose radioactive, my friend, or prepare for another Rino loss.
Godspeed
Why do you think they are so bent out of shape? Like cockroaches they can't stand the light. A lot of candidates are going to think twice before hooking up with any of these guys.
I notice that they discussed Sarah’s availability with the “candidate”. Should we assume that the candidate is McCain, because if it were Sarah, why not say it. I may be reading too much into this statement, but the way it was written is interesting, and allows for a lot of misinterpretation.
You posted, “When a Democrat lies, don’t complain, or say he’s being “misleading”: call him a lying dirtbag - in public. When a Democrat accuses you of wanting to starve children or throw granny into the street - call a news conference and have a truckload of manure sitting there. Then, tell the news media that you wanted to debate your opponent, but he declined, so you did the next best thing and brought a sampling of his ideas. You gotta think outside of the box, people. Have fun, stop whining and start winning.”
You are sooooooooo right.!! Proof is that George Bush did not fight back when he was attacked, which made him look weak and added to his unpopularity....a setback for Conservatives.
Thinking outside of the box, and taking the offensive is just exactly what we are doing with the Tea Parties.
Hah—these incompetents just fear for their careers, which ought to be over.
Fireman 5
Excellent post. I said the much the same at post 62 before I had read yours.
Godspeed
What kind of person hires a loser for his campaign...doesn’t speak well to his intelligence..
Can't wait for my book - pre-ordered on day one.
If these excerpts are any example, it's gonna be a great read.
I saw a clip of the Oprah interview - The ‘soft-spoken, caring faced, Oprah” is no where to be seen. Her face and voice are both hard and hostile = and she condescended to have Sarah on because, like Kati C., she's in bad need of ratings.
I would have preferred Sarah not give her the time of day, but I suspicion her publisher required it. Oprah has catapulted many books into best sellers.
Sarah's has been a best seller for weeks - and not even off the presses. She didn't need Oprah...and I hate for Oprah to jump on board and take any credit for it's success.
It would have been a great coup to say: “Sarah's book runaway best seller - without Oprah/”
McCainus, is that you?
Who would be a more viavble candidate?
If you ask me, she’s just about unstoppable.
“THROW A ROCK IN A HERD OF PIGS (very apropos in this instance) AND THE ONE WHO YOU HIT SQUEELS THE LOUDEST.”
Who was the dope in McCain’s camp that quit because he wouldn’t criticize Obama?
Campaign staffers are pretty much on the level of prostitutes. You pay for their love, and they’ll sell it to anybody. Palin’s problem was that she was too inexperienced to stand up to these jaded whores from the get-go and tell them who the boss was.
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Thanks to BufordP for the ping! |
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Message to top aides to Senator McCain.
Shut up.
It’s Sarah’s turn now. Just STFU.
which were published on The New York Times website which were published on ABCNews.com which were published on CNN.com which were published on....
Did any of you actually read the book!!!???
How is that every damn "review" of the book contains the same damn excerpts!!!
Bunch of newsholes.
For the life of me, I tell you what, I'm going to go out and buy my own damn copy because there's got to be more in there that what you jackasses are reporting on.
Good!
I have always felt that McCain suffered some sort of cognitive loss (in judgment) from being tortured. Also, he has surrounded him self with syncopates who are not honorable. Can’t all these individuals resign, retire or just walk away? They are so tiresome.
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