Palin's Big Spread in Vanity Fair

Zina Saunders illustration
Palin gets a big spread about stuff we already know--she's charismatic representing a small sliver of Americans. She's highly inept and doesn't have the worldliness needed to be a modern day vice president, let alone president. She doesn't worry about what she doesn't know, which is where audacity comes in:

By all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare. In the run-up to the Couric interview, Palin had become preoccupied with a far more parochial concern: answering a humdrum written questionnaire from her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman. McCain aides saw it as easy stuff, the usual boilerplate, the work of 20 minutes or so, but Palin worried intently. At the same time, she grew concerned that her approval ratings back home in Alaska were sagging as she embraced the role of McCain’s bad cop. To keep her happy, the chief McCain strategist, Steve Schmidt, agreed to conduct a onetime poll of 300 Alaska voters. It would prove to Palin, Schmidt thought, that everything was all right.
Then came the near-total meltdown of the financial system and McCain’s much-derided decision to briefly “suspend” his campaign. Under the circumstances, and with severely limited resources, Schmidt and the McCain-campaign chairman, Rick Davis, scrapped the Alaska poll and urgently set out to survey voters’ views of the economy (and of McCain’s response to it) in competitive states. Palin was furious. She was convinced that Schmidt had lied to her, a belief she conveyed to anyone who would listen. Read the big Palin story here.

Palin wanted to speak to her people:

Election Night brought what McCain aides saw as the final indignity. Palin decided she would make her own speech at the ticket’s farewell to the faithful, at the Arizona Biltmore, in Phoenix. When aides went to load McCain’s concession speech into the teleprompter, they found a concession speech for Palin—written by Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully, who had also been the principal drafter of her convention speech—already on the system. Schmidt and Salter told Palin that there was no tradition of Election Night speeches by running mates, and that she wouldn’t be giving one. Palin was insistent. “Are those John’s wishes?” she asked. They were, she was told. But Palin took the issue to McCain himself, raising it on the walk from his suite to the outdoor rally. Again the answer was no.

How Palin Was Chosen for McCain

By now, you've heard about the NYT's story on McCain's failed campaign. The story is not all that it's cracked up to be, or maybe I'm tired of reading of McCain's antics. But here's some of how Palin was chosen:

Then for a half-hour or so, the group reviewed names that had been bandied about in the past: Gov. Tim Pawlenty (of Minnesota) and Gov. Charlie Crist (of Florida); the former governors Tom Ridge (Pennsylvania) and Mitt Romney (Massachusetts); Senator Joe Lieberman (Connecticut); and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (New York). From a branding standpoint, they wondered, what message would each of these candidates send about John McCain? McInturff’s polling data suggested that none of these candidates brought significantly more to the ticket than any other.

“What about Sarah Palin?” Schmidt asked.

After a moment of silence, Fred Davis, McCain’s creative director (and not related to Rick), said, “I did the ads for her gubernatorial campaign.” But Davis had never once spoken with Palin, the governor of Alaska. Since the Republican Governors Association had paid for his work, Davis was prohibited by campaign laws from having any contact with the candidate. All Davis knew was that the R.G.A. folks had viewed Palin as a talent to keep an eye on. “She’d certainly be a maverick pick,” he concluded.

Seems to me Palin's sex appeal had all the men wrapped. That's my theory of why they would choose someone with so little vetting. She was too ignorant to realize she was being used as a tool. But now she seems to be using McCain to further her agenda:

For two hours, Salter and Schmidt asked Palin questions based on the vetting material. Salter says they discussed her daughter’s pregnancy and the pending state investigation regarding her role in the controversy surrounding the state trooper who had been married to her sister. The two advisers warned her that nothing was likely to stay secret during the campaign. Salter says that he was impressed. “The sense you immediately get is how tough-minded and self-assured she is,” he recalled three weeks after meeting her. “She makes that impression in like 30 seconds.”

McCain Helped Create the Blackberry

TP: Speaking to reporters today, McCain campaign adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin claimed that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is responsible for the “miracle” of PDAs. Politico reports:

“He did this,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. “Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce committee so you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.”

Although he doesn’t e-mail, McCain told the New York Times in July that he does “use the Blackberry.” Campaign aide Mark Salter added, “He uses a BlackBerry, just ours.”

McCain Tries to Paint Obama as Immature

Of course, John McCain is the mature one, running around calling Obama "Dr. No." What the heck?

McCain's latest strategy is a feeble attempt.  

Newsweek: But now, in a neat bit of campaign jiujitsu, the McCainiacs are trying to change a liability into a strength. McCain's 71 years have given him not only vastly more experience than Obama, the new thinking goes, they have ensured that America will have, once again, an "adult" president in the mold of an Eisenhower or a Truman. And there is no better evidence than McCain's energy plan, which the candidate has laid out in a very, er, energetic series of appearances and speeches over the last week. "We wanted it to be a grown-up vision," said Mark Salter, McCain's chief speechwriter and alter ego, who in a Newsweek interview reiterated several times that McCain's approach is that of an "adult." This evidence of mature judgment specifically includes McCain's decision to reverse himself—grown-ups adjust, after all, to changed circumstances—by calling for offshore oil drilling. "We wanted to show that McCain would view the presidency as a problem solver—a bipartisan problem solver," says Salter.