McCain HAS Told Sarah Palin to Shut Up
In a move cloaked in arrogance and incompetence, the John McCain campaign has decided not to let Sarah Palin talk to the press until after November’s election. This is part of a bash the press strategy, and has nothing at all to do with Sarah Palin’s talents and readiness for a run for the Veep job. She is woman, after all.
Just last night I wrote about the bounce the Obama fundraising got after Sarah Palin spoke at the RNC. I suggested, with my tongue firmly parked in my cheek, that McCain ought to make sure Palin didn’t speak again if it caused so much good for Obama. So what happens? McCain has decided to keep Sarah Palin from the press until the election. This seems unprecedented to me. From Time Magazine:
According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don’t care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace — in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough’s show — the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin’s scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.
That’s Jay Carney of Time, and he goes on to note that bashing the media will certainly rally the base of the GOP, but it isn’t going to get McCain to 50%. There are some Americans who want to ask questions of candidates and who think the press asking those questions as a surrogate for them is a fine situation. Those folks will not take kindly to the sequestering of a candidate they haven’t gotten to know yet. Of course, those of us in the Left Blogzome want to know what McCain and Palin are trying to hide. According to McCain, Sarah Palin is intelligent and capable and ready to take the job, but they won’t let her talk to the press? Does this mean the McCain campaign doesn’t think Palin capable of handling a few questions?
My mind just boggles here, though. Sure the McCain camp will try to spin this as a way to keep Palin from having her words distorted by the evil press. I get that they will now run against the press almost as much as they will run against Obama. I’m just thinking that’s a big mistake. But what the heck. In a comment to my post about Sarah Palin last night, sukabi told me to stop giving the McCain campaign advice. So I’m going to do as she requested.
I’m pretty sure that McCain’s crew had this in mind all along - she’s a prop to be wheeled out when they find it appropriate, not an actual running mate.
In that, she’s a great metaphor for the evangelical base as a whole - they’re a group of people that the GOP elites want to turn out and vote every two years, and beyond that they wish they could just stuff the evangelicals in a box and make them not talk at all when there’s not an election going on.
The really funny thing is that this week the Republicans looked like they were trying to run Palin as if she were actually at the top of the ticket. Kind of like a “forget the old dude - she’s the one you’re really going to be voting for” gambit. If that’s really their plan they’re going to have to let her talk to the press eventually. If that’s not their plan, then they kind of frittered away this whole last week of media spotlight.
(Of course my mistake may be in thinking that they have some kind of plan - these last few months have seem to be all tactics, no strategy on the GOP side.)
You mean they want her to stay barefoot, pregnant and silent, ecept when she’s giving a speech?
Thank you Steven. LOL.
I don’t think Ms. Palin is going to take being muzzled very kindly, she seems to relish the spotlight a bit too much and is more than happy to use her children as political pawns to BE IN the spotlight.
McCain’s going to find that a “pitbull with lipstick” is very willing to chew it’s leash in half to grab the mic and doesn’t “respect” that whole “I’m your master” thing.
And you’re forgetting the motto that ALL “Christian” conservatives and republicans live by: “The rules don’t apply to me.”
Sukabi, they’re taking her off the campaign trail. The excuse is that she’s going back home to deal with the family as it prepares to send Track to Iraq. but the report I read on Politico, by Ben Stein, indicates that they will be educating Palin on the issues, with no media anywhere nearby.
Steve I know that’s their plan, BUT like everything else the McCain camp has done so far this election cycle, I think this is going to be ANOTHER area where they have seriously “miscalculated” what they can pull off and I think they’re going to find out that Ms. Palin isn’t like the stereotypical “good Christian woman” who knows her place and takes her orders without question.
Short of locking her up in Gitmo, they won’t be able to keep her shut down for long.
Oh damn, now I’m giving them advice…
We can’t afford 4 more years of the same. Grampie McSame and Caribu Barbie have got to go!