I thought this nugget in Ben Smith’s piece on Steve Schmidt’s and David Plouffe’s view of the presidential race was quite interesting:
He (Schmidt) also explained his decision to deny Palin an election night speech as a nod to the fact that the concession is a “singular moment” in American public life.
“It begins the process by which power is transferred peacefully,” he said.
Is Schmidt implying that Palin would have given an incendiary speech that would have, in some small way, disrupted the peaceful transfer of power? I don’t disagree but it’s an interesting admission, to say the least, if I’m interpreting it correctly.
Update. I agree with renato that the whole piece is a bit of a blockbuster. The stuff about Lieberman is interesting as well (it’s what we already knew, but it’s interesting to see Schmidt admit it).
r€nato
Interesting notion, you betcha.
However I would think that the decisive factor was, when was the last time, if ever, that the losing veep candidate gave a concession speech?
They were not co-candidates. It was McCain’s campaign. He alone deserved to make the concession speech. It’s yet more evidence of Palin’s limitless grasping for power that she would even suggest that she also ought to give a concession speech (which would have really been a Palin 2012 speech).
DougJ
I agree. Which is what makes Schmidt’s comments all the more interesting to me. After his comments on gay marriage, I’m ready for the possibility that he is a bit of a thinker that way (in a good way).
Davis X. Machina
I know that, and you know that, but did anyone tell Palin?
Tonal Crow
In fairness, it seems not unlikely that Schmidt meant the “peaceful transfer” sentence to relate only to the “singular moment” clause, not to the “deny” clause.
r€nato
That was a really interesting article, thanks for linking to it. I recommend that the rest of you actually read it for once ;-)
I really enjoyed Schmidt’s comments that Obama’s campaign was the unfinished RFK campaign. Absolutely. Undoubtedly. I also really enjoyed the end of the article… if Obama can pull off the transformation, it will pay dividends for decades to come. I am usually allergic to hyperbole but I really do think he’s the second coming of FDR. If he can accomplish his agenda on health care and energy and economic policy, he’ll leave a legacy which will endure for decades.
Exhibit ZZ Gazillion that the GOP is fucked so long as they continue to allow the fundies to call the shots.
MikeJ
I don’t think you’re reading it right. Tonal Crow has it right. Palin didn’t get to speak because everyone with any sense wanted McCain to be able to give a classy concession, which he did. I was in a bar full of drunken Dems and everybody thought it was good. Had Palin been allowed to speak, reaction to McCain’s speech would have been cut by at minimum 50%.
DougJ
@renato
That was interesting too. I already knew that. But it was interesting to see it openly admitted.
jenniebee
I wouldn’t go that far, but I think it’s fair to say that she’s an exceptionally divisive figure. I doubt she could deliver so much as a postcard without suggesting that it would have been more patriotic to send it UPS.
DougJ
That’s what I think he’s getting at, yes.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fxd. And yes.
Please, we all know her speechwriter snapped and ran off screaming.
Ahem. Also:
Edit: Why the hell won’t this thing let me put paratags around my blockquotes to stop the bold fonting anymore? Feed the hamsters please.
MikeJ
I dunno, in the article they’re waaay to easy on the horrible McCain campaign. They sucked ass from day one. “Suspending” the campaign, dissing Letterman and showing up with Couric? What a bunch of maroons.
r€nato
One of the really encouraging actions which continue to fuel my Obamaphilia, was his recent announcement that the US would open coastal waters to leases for the development of projects to generate energy from ocean currents, wind and waves. DUH! The Europeans are doing this, why shouldn’t we? It is a no-brainer.
If the Republicans had any brains whatsoever, they would get the fuck over the fact that they lost the election, they would get the fuck over the fact that Obama is staggeringly popular, and they would try to co-opt some of his policies.
Fortunately for us, the Republicans aren’t anywhere near that smart. Instead they will probably sneer at any wind/wave/ocean current power projects like they did when Obama suggested that people inflate their tires properly in order to save gasoline, and continue to chant ‘drill baby drill’.
r€nato
If I was a Republican and intended to remain one, I’d be pretty pissed with Karl Rove and George W. Bush.
There’s a copper mining company here in Arizona called ASARCO. A few years back, a wealthy Mexican family bought it through their closely-held mining company, basically looted it and then had ASARCO declare Chapter 11 (at a time when by all rights the company should have been flush with cash due to high copper prices).
That is exactly what the Bush/Rove cabal did with the GOP. They came in and took it over, everyone had a grand old time for 8 years, and now the remaining Republicans are looking around at one another and wondering what the hell happened.
El Cid
Ho-lee bejeezes: 25% of publicly traded firms estimated to not survive the year.
KG
@1: I recall Edwards giving one in ’04, and Lieberman in ’00, as well (though Lieberman’s may have been at the “we’re going for a recount” stage).
Tonal Crow
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
This blog has the worst-ever software, but the commentariat keeps me coming back.
M. Bouffant
@DougJ:
One of the reasons Schmidt’s rational on gay issues is that his sister is lesbian. Although the story certainly doesn’t make him look like an idiot.
Otherwise, there’s no tradition of the veep candidate making a separate concession speech. That woman’s really incredible, isn’t she?
JGabriel
kommrade reproductive vigor:
Ditto. That’s a very good question, for which I would also like an answer.
.
Mike in NC
The crazy whore from Wasilla? Nah, never would have happened.
Tonal Crow
@El Cid:
Don’t mortgage your house to buy puts just yet; there’s more context: the figure is a consulting firm’s projection of the percentage of publicly-traded companies whose auditors will insist on including a “going concern” proviso in their quarterly/annual reports. A “going concern” proviso does not, in itself, mean that a company will go under, only that there is an elevated risk of it. Thus “not survive the year” overstates the case. Also, a little history from the article:
DougJ
@Mike in NC
I don’t see how calling her that is productive, IMHO.
JGabriel
This was posted two threads ago, but while we’re discussing Palin’s divisiveness, it seems appropriate to repost it here.
Seems the the NRA have decided to “honor” Palin by presenting her with “a modified AR-15 (civilian version of the milspec M16 rifle), specially customized in honor of Gov. Sarah Palin and dubbed ‘The Alaskan Hunter'”.
More details at Tools For Sister Sarah, er, I mean Redstate.
.
gizmo
Get Yer Special Sarah Palin Assault Rifle Right Here….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/sarah-palin-to-be-given-h_n_190802.html
(Notice that it isn’t a weapon designed for hunting game)
MikeJ
In a corporate takeover, when you sell out you don’t give a shit what happens to the company. The Republicans kept voting for Bush and the majority of them even today defend him.
KG
in re 15:
Text of Edwards’ 2004 concession speech.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Tonal Crow: Second place. 1st prize for worst software ever goes to the train wreck over at Washington Monthly. Still, I agree about the commentariat so I worry we’re about to see the return of John’s other blog: WordPress Error.
I’m looking at the page source and it appears that for some reason it’s knocking off the [p] tag but leaving the closing tag.
/Kvetch
El Cid
@Tonal Crow: OK, this time I’ll be relieved to admit to have misunderstood the accounting lingo.
JK
It was a prudent move not to let Palin speak on Election Night. In her convention speech she quoted Westbrook Pegler’s line “We grow good people in our small towns.”
Pegler was a whack job who wrote of his disappointment that FDR was not assassinated
Source: The GOP Loves the Heartland To Death,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122100226859616967.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today
and his hope that RFK would both be assassinated.
Source: Governor Palin’s Reading List,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/governor-palins-reading-l_b_126478.html
If McCain’s people were dumb enough to cite a nutjob like Pegler for the convention sppech, who knows what kind of nonsense might they have fed to Palin for her election night speech?
Dennis-SGMM
Another possibility is that Schmidt wanted to prevent her from destroying her own political future by making a spiteful, vitriolic speech. She strikes me as the type who says the first thing that comes into her head and at a time like that the first thing that would come into her head would likely involve the word “fuck” for openers.
JenJen
Steve Schmidt’s ““This was, in my view, the unfinished Bobby Kennedy campaign” line was very complimentary, and it surprised me to read it.
Very interesting talk and I wish I could have been there, because I eat campaign post-mortems with a spoon! The Newsweek account says Schmidt knew the campaign was over just prior to the second debate, but in this account he seems to acknowledge that they were doomed from the beginning. That’s a little newsworthy, I think.
It’s also interesting to watch some factions start to form out of the 2008 GOP dust. Judging by his address to the Log Cabin Republicans the other day, Schmidt seems to be firmly in the new Meghan McCain Wing of the Republican Party, which to me seems like the
mostonly rational wing going. While I don’t think throwing the party to a 24 year-old is the best political idea ever, it’s still very amusing watching her smack Karl Rove and Dick Cheney around.Can’t wait for Dan Balz’ book; I think it doesn’t come out until summer, though.
FMguru
I dunno, in the article they’re waaay to easy on the horrible McCain campaign.
Yeah. Schmidt’s concessions about the brilliance of the Obama campaign is pure CYA reputation-salvaging on his part. “I’m not to blame! We ran into a once-in-a-generation historical buzzsaw! We were dead from day one! We were lucky to do as well as we did!” Bullshit. It was a tough slog, and probably un-winnable after the autumn financial meltdown, but I can’t think of anything Schmidt’s campaign did that was clever or smart or agile or anything. Obama was coming off a long and bitter primary campaign, which was needlessly extended for months by the loser, and was a black guy with big ears and a funny name. He just outhustled, outfundraised, and outstrategized you chumps. Trying to play it off like he was this inevitable 800-pound juggernaut is just sad.
(I mean – running ads complaining about how he was a celebrity? whining about how that “lipstick on a pig” line was the most misogynist thing said in the history of oratory? Building the fall campaign around Sam the not-Plumber? making fun of your opponent for being a community organizer? Those were your best shots, Steve?)
El Cid
@JenJen: Wouldn’t it be so typical of the times for there to actually be a “Meghan McCain Wing” of the national GOP? Another thing you simply would not have conceived up 10 years ago.
LD50
I have to admit, I’m rather curious now as to what Palin would have said election night. If Schmidt thought she was that much of a loose cannon, it’s pretty intriguing to ponder what craziness would have been unleashed. “JUST YOU WAIT! I’LL WIN NEXT TIME AND HAVE EVERYONE WHO LAUGHED AT ME KILLED!!!!!!!”
eemom
I don’t know anything about Schmidt except that he ran McCain’s campaign, and that I don’t trust any rethuglican, especially one who ran McCain’s campaign, as far as I could throw him, no matter how “reasonable” he sounds.
But I do find the reference to “peaceful transfer of power” a bit odd, especially considering Governess Demagogue’s unique appeal to the craziest of the crazies. What is he suggesting — that St Sarah of Arc could have mobilized the righteous warriors of the Lord to seize the throne from the Pretender?
El Cid
@LD50: “AND I’LL GET YER LITTLE DOG TOTO TOO!!”
Dennis-SGMM
@El Cid:
It is also typical of the times that so far the Meghan McCain Wing of the GOP is composed of exactly Meghan McCain and Steve Schmidt. Meghan will be old enough to run for president herself before the wingers and fundies lose their grip on the party. As of today, it seems that the GOP doesn’t feel that they did anything wrong. There’s no questioning of their methods or motives and absolutely no introspection. Instead, the RNC is being petitioned to change the names it calls Obama.
AhabTRuler
Stock phrase. Grand and glorious source of American Exceptionalism(TM) for the poli-sci set.
Dennis-SGMM
@eemom:
She would have added a new chapter to American history: The Short-Lived Drunken White Guys Rebellion of 2008.
El Cid
@Dennis-SGMM: SOUF GON’ RISE A’GINN, BUDDEEEE!!!
JGabriel
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Yep, I did the same thing a couple days ago, and noticed the same thing. The question is: why?
(Fumes silently with little black cloud over his head)
Oh, well.
.
someguy
Fuck convention. Any chance you get to rub a winger’s nose in it, you should take it. Doesn’t matter if it’s your neighbor, a relative, a veep candidate, or the sitting president. They aren’t wrong about a policy, they are on the wrong side of history. You don’t conciliate with evil, you repudiate it.
JK
@FMguru: Good points. While Schmidt, deserves credit for his public statements about gay rights, the campaign he waged was disgusting. “Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election”. They called Obama a traitor.
I don’t trust Schmidt. He knows what to say to win style points. He can praise Obama as much as he wants, but I don’t forgive him for his gutter tactics.
El Cid
O/T, but painfully funny. From The Onion: “How Are Corporations Going Green “
Tonal Crow
@LD50:
How about: “You fool! You can’t throw water on the wi-wi-wi…I’m meltiiiiiiiiiiing!”
JGabriel
@JenJen:
Kind of like watching Blonde Dominatrix XXIV. But ironically.
.
JenJen
@Dennis-SGMM: Reading her over-hyped Daily Beast columns, and watching her on “The View” though (and trust me, I watched the excerpts because that show kills brain cells), it makes me think that, here we have this 24 year-old daughter of GOP royalty and she’s the only person in the party to have figured out an effective media strategy.
It’s not enough; Ms. McCain’s biggest intellectual mistake is not yet recognizing that marketing is not going to save the Republican Party. I agree that she and Schmidt are the only members of this wing, but I think they could build a small faction. Eventually, and I think it could take a decade and more, doesn’t the GOP have to go for the middle?
What’s so interesting about politics in the last eight years is that “the middle” is not what it was in 2000, and who knows where it will be in 2012 and beyond? I just don’t see it swinging back to the right.
JGabriel
@JenJen:
B-b-b-but, what about the Permanent Majority?
.
El Cid
@JenJen: Is it really an effective media strategy? To me it seems more like this is one of those episodes of American Idol, where on the spur of the moment the crowd seem to notice one contestant that just seemed somewhat normal, and not a raging, preening asshole, so they’re all committed to cheer for this one now, even though she doesn’t sing too well but she’s better than the others. And the surprised and pleased favored contestant really had no plans for any of this, but got tired of being insulted by the freakshow remainders. And it goes about that deep.
JenJen
@JK:
I know, I know… but I’ll always think it could’ve been worse. No matter how awful it felt at the time, if Atwater/Rove had been running that thing, it would’ve split the nation into bits, I think.
@El Cid: Oh, no, I didn’t mean it was an effective media strategy overall, I should have said it was effective for a Republican right now. Which, like you said, is like American Idol. Or “Every Kid Gets A Trophy.” :-)
Tonal Crow
@JGabriel:
Same place as the 1000-year reign envisioned by a dictator who made the grade in 1945.
gwangung
Sure it can, if the Democrats are unusually corrupt or inept.
But if they show a shred of integrity or competence, no.
JK
Obama is regularly being referred to as a socialist and a fascist, so I can’t get excited over the fact that Steve Schmidt has suddenly decided to say some nice things about Obama.
The same Meaghan McCain who attacks some Republicans was recently whining that the media is giving Obama a free ride. I don’t care if she has challenged some people on her side. I’ll never forgive Tina Brown for giving a platform to this self-absorbed dope.
Dennis-SGMM
@JenJen:
Meghan McCain is getting attention because she’s the only one who doesn’t sound like this:
El Cid
@Dennis-SGMM: That was perfect. A thing of beauty.
used to be disgusted
@El Cid:
Pree-cisely. It makes you realize how low the bar is that the GOP is failing to get over. Megan McCain has become a star just by being a) a Republican and yet b) oddly lacking an intense aura of hate, sophistry, and creepiness.
The Other Steve
tea bag them before they tea bag you!
LD50
Maybe, just maybe, the market for Republicans burning with hate, sophistry, and creepiness has become glutted?
Common Sense
I had a fleeting thought of registering as a Republican, at least for 2012. That’s not to say that I would vote Republican in the general, but I really want a sensible opposition party, and I’m terrified of what those primaries are going to produce.
Then I remembered that the only candidates dumb enough to run will be batshit crazy and happy to get their asses handed to them as long as they get the spotlight while it’s happening. I figured when the options are Palin, Jindal, Beck, and Limbaugh there’s no point.
jonas
Palin hated Schmidt and McCain’s campaign people and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was simply afraid that she would use the speech to go balistic on the way the campaign was run and talk about how if she had just been allowed to “get her message out,” things would have turned out differently. She was a woman scorned on election night, and Schmidt knew it.
I would love to get Schmidt alone in a room sometime and ask him, strictly off the record, “at what moment did you discover that Sarah Palin was a dimwitted, dangerously unhinged psychopath?” I’m sure he can recall it in some detail.
LD50
Silly boy, you’re forgetting Romney, Huckabee and Sanford!
Common Sense
@LD50:
And Perry. How could I forget Rick “I advocate secession as a means of running for President” Perry?
El Cid
“Hey’s! Every one of ya’s up ‘er, raise up yor damn hand if’n ya t’believes this ‘eee-vo-lushun sheeit’!! What? Five of ya’s! Outta eight? Lawdy, what done hap’ to us?”
Ash Can
OT, but, via the GOS, it looks like there will indeed be a ratcheting-up of public outrage on torture over the coming days and weeks. Thanks to the FOIA and the ACLU, there are pictures coming, as well as quite possibly interrogation transcripts, among other lovelies.
I highly recommend following the link and reading this whole diary. It’s devoid of hyperbole, contains a lot of good information, and furnishes numerous useful links. The undeniable upshot of the story, though, is that we’d better brace ourselves.
cs
When postulating a possible future for the Republicans, there’s one name thats been overlooked so far: Ron Paul.
Obviously, the man himself will never wake up one day to find himself party chairman or seated at the table with the rest of the grownups. But his campaign was the only Republican one with a larger than trivial amount of involvement from the young and many of them got involved with the party at a grassroots level.
And while he himself might be a racist with wacky religious beliefs, this doesn’t really show up in his public rhetoric or in his ideology, other than the strong pro-life position, and the ideology is flexible enough to allow pro-choice people in, unlike the Republican Party as a whole. There’s a lot of flexibility in his brand of libertarianism and a lot of potential inclusiveness.
Doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, Christian or Jew or Muslim or Atheist, Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, just as long as you want the government to leave you alone, stop spending quite so wastefully, not violate civil liberties, and stay out of pointless wars.
As possible party futures go, this one is the best I can see. I wouldn’t always agree with them, but I’d vote for a party like that occasionally as opposed to just putting up with the Democrats 100% of the time.
Martin
Before she was picked, I’m certain. Nothing in the story is surprising to me. Palin was clearly a hail-mary move. She never fit into the campaign, she didn’t reinforce any of McCain’s positions, and at the end she was treated as the accessory she always was.
I said at the time that Palin was picked that it showed that McCain knew the election was lost. None of the frontrunners would have changed that. Polling showed that clearly enough. A wildcard like Palin was the only hope – not because the polling supported it, but because she fell outside so many of the known variables that at least there stood a chance they could pull it off.
The GOP better get their shit together soon. Even when they were proclaiming a permanent Republican majority, the Democrats had a registered voter advantage. That advantage is now massive, closing in on a point where there are enough non-Democratic-leaning independents to form a sustainable 3rd party. Even if the 3rd party isn’t that successful, it’ll kill the GOP simply by having a permanent Ross Perot out there fucking up the works. Even though Megan McCain comes off too much like a 2nd year undecided major, she sounds like fucking Eisenhower compared to any of the current GOP leadership and in the long term they would be better off with her running the RNC.
Martin
Ron would be worse off bound to the GOP. He really should pull the libertarian party up to more prominent status rather than try and reform the fundies out of the GOP. That’s the current inertia, at least – the GOP will continue to become the Jesus party and Paul could leech off all the Club for Growth and Ayn Randians.
MikeJ
McCain had positions?
Steve T.
Oh, jeez. McCain was mocked for looking like a geezer trying to get it up one more time, paired with a VP candidate who looked like a trophy wife. And this guy, his campaign manager, the man who’s supposed to know the mind of the voters, says the problem was that McCain — metaphorically, mind you — couldn’t throw the football through the tire.
Did none of them ever see that Levitra ad? The one everybody was smirking about? And they don’t realize that they’re clueless???
Martin
Once upon a time he did. Aside from earmarks, they dried up as he tried to suck up to the base, though.
Steve V
I think Schmidt’s statement is really just an admission that his campaign had riled the GOP base, and an acknowledgment that that was Palin’s appeal; he wanted the concession to start the process of cooling down the hostlity that had been stirred up. In retrospect, it looks like nothing McCain or Schmidt did could calm down the crazy.
El Cid
He had many of them, often contradicting each other simultaneously, depending on the time of day.
Hunter Gathers
I hate to tell Schmidt and the Beer Princess, but the GOP will never come around on the gay marriage issue. If they do, the Evangelicals will walk away. They would lose about a quarter or so of thier hardcore base voters, and thier money will go with them. Without the evangelicals, the GOP is effectively dead. A coalition of the crazy, the stupid, and tax cut fetishists would not get them anywhere close to even 40% in a national election. The evangelical base is thier lifeline. It would be suicide for them to come out for gay marriage. The Christian Right already has already been marginalized. If Republicans flip on gay rights, it will be a ‘last straw’, and believe me, they’ll walk away and just not vote anymore. I have a few Bible Thumpers in my family, and the only reason they voted for McCain was because of Palin. If the next candidate isn’t fiercely pro-life and anti-gay, they won’t show at the polls. Softening thier position on gay marriage is the right thing to do, but it won’t happen anytime soon.
By the way, Schmidt is completely full of shit. He’s just trying to cover his ass. The tactics he used are the exact ones the GOP are using right now, and they will continue to use them as long as Obama is in office. If he was convinced that McCain could not possibly win, then why did he keep pushing all of the bullshit right up until election day? He had to have attended at least one of the crazy Palin rallies, he had to have seen the insanity he unleashed. And he kept pushing it. He is nothing but a professional bullshit artist. Where did the first charges of the ‘s’ word originate, I wonder?
dslak
According to Matt Welch’s McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, McCain was a consummate neocon even before 9/11.
WereBear
Hunter Gathers@ 70:
I agree with the whole Fundy Death Grip scenario. Back in 2000, it was a soothing thought: church people sounded good. Upright, sensible, will bring a covered dish in times of trouble. There are plenty of Christians who are not rabid fundies; and, apparently, have not had much exposure to them.
What could go wrong?
Now that other Christians are more fully aware of just how Rapture-obsessed church-goers are planning to remake their lives, it’s not nearly so warm and fuzzy. They bring the covered dish, but won’t let you have any until you buy a gun and throw your children out into the snow.
The whole facade of Sensible Republicans has crumbled and the people want some competent administration of government. Especially now.
The crazy train is now a runaway, and people who are trying to slow it down will get pushed off and marginalized. Talk of letting the moderates in is just not taking hold, because what are they then? Democrat-lite?
The lunatics are running the asylum, and they won’t come out until it’s burned to the ground.
Ash
What is this crap? Steve Schmidt’s mea culpa for running the shittiest, most backward, incendiary and dangerous campaign in like…ever?
Calouste
@Ash:
McCain was only the shittiest campaign since 9ui11ani. Only if you assume that 9ui11ani’s purpose was to slush $50 million in donor money to hs consultant buddies, instead of trying to win delegates, it was actually a massive success.
Cat Lady
@r€nato:
In mob parlance this is called a bust out. See: Soprano, Tony.
(Scatino episode). In other words, the whole enterprise of the Bush crime family, except substitute Treasury for ASARCO.
kommrade reproductive vigor
You know, Schmidt sounds semi-reasonable ONLY because the many-headed monster he helped create is shrieking about ACORN, teabags, socialism and birth certificates.
On further reflection, if Schmidt is willing to admit that Palin is so demented that she would have issued a call to arms, he’s admitting that she wasn’t fit to come within a thousand miles of the Oval Office. That didn’t bother him when he was getting a paycheck to put her a heart beat away.
With that in mind, here’s my interpretation: “We could have let her start Civil War II, but we’re such nice guys that we didn’t. Where’s my cookie?”
In other words, he’s just another fucking hack.
@FMguru: Exactleee.
CeriConversion
@cs: The problem with Ron Paul is that none of his substantial positions are anywhere close to what American majorities actually want. Most libertarians have no idea how strongly a lot of us actually do want a strong social safety net including comprehensive health care, anti-discrimination laws, food and consumer product safety, good public education, enforced constraints on corporate decision-making, and a lot else. The European consensus is looking awfully good to a lot of us and Paul has worse than nothing to offer any of those aspirations. He’s good on war but nothing else when it comes to mainstream American desires.
Ash Can
Something seems off with what Schmidt is saying in this article, gracious and lucid as he may be. Specifically, I recall reading some time ago that the decision to add Sarah Palin to the ticket was his. Here, however, he’s saying that the decision came from “within the party.” It’s not impossible, I suppose, that he could have gotten the word from the party honchos himself about the criteria for the VP candidate and, when he subsequently suggested Palin, others simply assumed the idea originated with him. But it has a weird ring to it.
Furthermore, this now begs the question of who exactly is the “within the party” Schmidt mentions here? And this takes me back to last year, to one of my main gripes with McCain, his campaign, and the entire GOP. Once Obama won the Democratic nomination, he was in the driver’s seat, practically and philosophically, of both his campaign and of the Democratic Party as a whole. And he acted like it; it was clear to see that he was running his own show. McCain, on the other hand, not only was not in charge of the GOP, he wasn’t even in charge of his own fucking campaign. Furthermore, nobody seemed to have any idea who was in charge of the party and the campaign — or seemed willing to say who was in charge. With Schmidt referring to whoever was calling the shots as a vague “within the party” here, I’m wondering anew just what the fuck was going on with that campaign.
Was Rush Limblow already the GOP puppetmaster at that time?
CeriConversion
@Ash Can: I was also wondering about that. I sometimes edit technical documents, and thought “There’s a lot of passive voice in here. What are the names he’s not willing to say?”
Dennis-SGMM
@Ash Can:
There’s still no one in charge of the GOP and in such a rigidly structured top-down organization that results in the chicken-with-its-head-cut-off behavior we’re seeing from them now.
Who can forget the near-daily statements that, “[Name] doesn’t speak for the McCain campaign,”? In the end, the self-contradictory McCain didn’t seem to speak for the McCain campaign either. That vacuum persisted and now only Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove are authorized to provide the GOP with talking points.
PanAmerican
Who would of thought?
Telling the VP candidate to go make us a sandwich. From a campaign and party that’s so strong on woman’s issues.
PUMA!
Cat Lady
@Ash Can:
I totally agree with this. All McCain had was his bio, and nothing else. No firmly held positions, no charm, no smarts. He just had his left over media good will from the 2000 campaign, and due to his lack of other redeeming traits, that wore off fairly quickly too. The base needs red meat, black/white thinking to get them to show up, and that’s what Schmidt had to do every day – tactic over strategy. It would be fascinating to hear who actually torpedoed Lieberman.
You can tell that Rove is gone from the inside day-to-day role he played. The talking points are taking longer and longer to show up in the inboxes, and when they do, they’re weak sauce.
geg6
@JenJen:
I couldn’t agree more. I really hope these seemingly rational people can gain some traction among the non-completely-batshit-insane GOPers who may or may not be left in the party because I’m a firm believer in a strong (at least) two-party system. I’m surprisingly finding Meghan McCain semi-intelligent, in a spoiled-brat kinda way. And I’ve read a few interviews and overviews about Steve Schmidt since the election and he always comes off to me as very smart. I think he could do a great job with a halfway decent candidate. The problem is…who the hell in the GOP is even close to being a halfway decent candidate right now?
Crickets.
sparky
i would be a bit careful about assuming that the rump status of the GOP means it’s out of the struggle for power. as long as it keeps a deathgrip on the fundies, 20-25% of the vote is theirs, right out of the gate. all they have to do is either (a) find a good candidate or (b) have the stars line up in the right order for them. Obama wasn’t even on the map until 2004, and LBJ and the 1960s began the demolition of what until then was a pretty unlikely coalition that turned out to be surprisingly durable. finally, it’s reasonable to suppose that same-sex marriage is more like abortion than prohibition: there’s no reason to think legitimating it will make the issue disappear. it might, but it might not.
i’m not saying i know what the next good combination or candidate is, because i don’t. but there’s a lot of money and power in the GOP that IS interested in figuring out the answers to those questions.
i did, and do, think that once Obama won the primary contests it was his election to lose. McCain had so many negatives that it was unlikely he would win. not impossible, but unlikely. the Lehman Brothers collapse is significant imo because you saw the campaign basically give up at that point. they were just going through the motions after that event. i think it’s important to keep in mind that at least in the GOP the locus of power and the campaign are not necessarily the same thing. Reagan is a good example of this.
someguy
Why do any of you even care about wanting a Republican opposition party? Seriously. I think the argument that they can ever be for fiscal responsibility at this point has been blown out of the water. Social conservatism has been repudiated for the bigotry that it is. Their hawkishness earns us nothing but enemies, from the cold war to the drug war to Iraq and Afghanistan.
What the fuck is it about them that people want them around, even as an opposition party? Shouldn’t we be rooting for a sensible opposition party to the left of the Democrats? After all, when all the former Republican voters go Dem, it’s going to move the party substantially to the right. For example, see the egregious Blue Dog Coalition.
les
@someguy:
Yes, that. If we want to join the rest of the civilized world, let the 28%ers sit in the corner and pout, and joust with the libertarians for the Most Irrelevant prize; if there are any sane republicans, let ’em join the DLC and act as a semi-responsible right wing party. The rest of the Dems might turn into a moderate left force, and might have to listen to the DFH’s once in a while. It’s way past time we quit arguing about whether the U.S. should provide modern services to its citizens, but how.
Martin
Because he was paid to.
Jesus guys, you act like everyone in this game is part of a crusade. It was a job. Even McCain running was a job. They did what they needed to do to try and do that job successfully. And if he didn’t continue the bullshit up to the last minute, he’d never get hired by the next guy who thinks he can win and expects his campaign manager to fight to the last vote:
It probably was. If my guy was clearly going to lose, and the polling told me all the uptight white male running mates wouldn’t change that, and I had no polling showing me a path to victory, I’d go out and find someone who didn’t fit the polling and hope to God they’d bring more in than they’d lose. That’s what Palin was – it was a combo play of hoping that disaffected Hillary supporters would come over, the fundies would come back strong, guys would vote with their dick, and half a dozen other interest/fringe groups would show up as well. IOW, they had nothing to lose with the pick since they were going to lose the race with anyone else. I might think the individual was off-the-rails insane, but my job is to get this person elected and it’d be the right move to make. It was a clear out-of-the-box decision, and a pretty good one, IMO, since it had a chance of working. Even the Obama folks admitted the pick caught them off guard and they weren’t sure where they stood with that move.
gopher2b
Schmidt should have told her: “Yeah, you can give a speech tonight, but you have to write it.” Rut row.
gopher2b
That seems like so long ago. Can you imagine if McCain had already bit it and Palin was in charge. Just for second….imagine that. With all that is going on….Wall Street would be running the world right now (even more so than usual).
I’m convinced that McCain will die before the end of Obama’s first term just to teach us a lesson about the potential consequences of our decisions.
Cris
It’s a WordPress plugin arms race. Every time we find a way to defeat it, it finds a new defense.
For what it’s worth, though, the blog software itself (WordPress) isn’t at fault, it’s the third-party plugins that JC has chosen to add to enhance our experience.
Comrade Darkness
I’ll confess that at the time, perhaps in a fit of election result euphoria, I assumed that she would have given a speech that was mostly reconciliation with some jabs at, “i’ll be back” Mostly I assumed this because the speech would have been all about concession and she’s such an attention whore that she might have fallen in line to maximize the attention on her. But then again given how much booing mccain got during his speech, it’s possible palin would have buckled and gone all brown shirt again.
celticdragon
@ Martin
Agreed. How sad that the party I have belonged to my entire life is reduced to having a twenty something, chirpy daughter of a senator come to represent the sole voice of sanity and tolerance/moderation for the entire outfit.
I still can’t quite believe it. We were asleep at the wheel while the fundies grabbed the levers of power in the party…and it will be decades still before we get them back, if ever. Liberty University seems predicated on the notion of brainwashing as many fundie zombies as possible to keep taking spots in the Army of God /Republican Party for the forseable future.
binzinerator
@Martin:
[regarding adding Palin to the ticket (sorry, can’t nest blockquotes with this blog)]:
I think I understand the point you’re trying to make, but Christ on a Pogostick, this whole ‘just doing my job’ shit doesn’t work for me when doing your job means riling people into a frenzy of threatened violence, bigotry, fear, and tribalism. If you really and truly think the person is off-the-rails insane then what the fuck are you doing trying to put that person in a position of great power and in line to be the most powerful person on the planet?
It’s more than just doing one’s job. It’s an example of the banality of evil.
binzinerator
And no martin I don’t mean you are an example of the banality of evil. But I believe doing what you described is. Please don’t rationalize it. The Schmidts of the world are good enough at it already, they don’t need any help.
binzinerator
@gopher2b:
The last 8 years should have been lesson enough. If it wasn’t enough for some people, McCain’s demise in Obama’s first term won’t be either.
CeriConversion
@someguy: “Shouldn’t we be rooting for a sensible opposition party to the left of the Democrats?” That’s what I want. The Democrats have enough toadies to big business and fans of crony capitalism. We need a party that starts around Dodd and Kucinich and goes left from there, that might help drag us to where Europe was about ninety years ago.
El Cid
The fundamentalists didn’t grab the reins of GOP power uninvitedly. They were an essential, and highly entreated, wing drawn in by the anti-labor, anti-middle class big business crowd as the hammer end of the party.
Well, now, they shouldn’t be unhappy with what they’ve been setting a precedent for for 40 years.