”The heels are on, the gloves are off,” Palin said
Sarah Palin is off and running in her role as a pit bull, but soon all the stories in the papers will focus on her own Troopergate problems, the email mess in Alaska, and on McCain’s dubious associations of the past. Going negative will more than lose the GOP the White house, but also the Senate. Yet no Repubs will rein McCain/Palin in.
That’s a quote from the Associated Press which is covering Palin the attack dog. The GOP ticket of Palin/McCain is going to regret going negative at all, much less going negative so early. And John McCain is going to get angry with himself all over again for putting Palin at the top of his ticket. As Charles Krauthammer, the Republican Pundit Gone Wild, notes, McCain has gambled with the Hail Mary pass too often, and he’s going to lose because of it.
Palin’s troubles are not just going to be about false statements in the debate the other night, such as her false claim of leading alaska towards disinvesting in Sudan. She in fact opposed that move before she flip flopped in time for the debate. No, Sarah Palin is going to get some scrutiny fromt he Troopergate scandal, where seven State of Alaska employees are ignoring her order not to testify. (Where’s Todd’s testimony now?) There are also lawsuits about emails of Palin’s in Alaska, and there’s going to be a lot of problems with her government charging $88,000 for complying with a FOIA request. Palin’s attack dog tactics are going to end up shining an ugly light on her, and every news story from here on out are going to talk about her Alaskan troubles as well as her connections to the radical Party her husband belonged to. But she’s opened the floodgates to associatiates of McCain as well.
I talked about some of those associations of McCain’s here. Yeah, the bottom of the Palin/McCain ticket is going to get scrutiny as well. McCain has been a friend of convicted felon Charles Keating, of convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy, and he’s good friends with the GOP architect of deregulation, and erstwhile banking lobbyist Phil Gramm. Hey, we may even see stories about John McCain and P.J. O’Rourke! These stories are going to get more air time as Palin takes the gloves off, and that won’t be good for the Palin/McCain ticket, driving the disapprovals of both Palin and McCain down at the same time they attack Barack Obama.
Obama, meanwhile, is rock steady. He buys flowers for his wife, he celebrates their anniversary with a quiet dinner, and he’ll likely be cool, calm and collected in tomorrow’s debate while the nation waits for John McCain to blow his temper and start ranting.
Today’s essential reading is in two parts. First is a Newsweek piece that basically concludes that Palin is not ready for the job of running for Vice President, not just unprepared for winning the job. She’s folksy enough, but in tough times people will not choose a folksy Hockey Mom over experience. The second is Frank Rich’s piece from yesterday where he notes that the selection of Palin to be the face of the Palin/McCain campaign will sink that campaign. I’ll agree with rich that the Palin nomination was the stupidest gamble ever made by John McCain.
Lots of optimism today. And a fun debate to look forward to tomorrow. Can McCain change his image problem as a cranky old coot, an image he polished with his body language in the last debate, or will McCain’s temper get the best of him? Viewers will be watching to see McCain get angry, and that’s not good for the Palin/McCain ticket. America is already laughing at the Palin side of the ticket, and now they will be running in fear from the McCain end of the Palin/McCain ticket. Good cop/bad cop may work on TV and in the movies, but it isn’t going to work in an election for President.
Don’t forget that, apparently, McCain’s only other visible emotional state is when he has that appalling grin plastered on his face. That’s more frightening than when he blows his top. Heads I win, tails you lose, Johnnie.
Something else to think about when it comes to John McCain:
It’s now emerged that some 30 years ago, John McCain was on the board of a notoriously racist and anti-Semitic organisation styled as the “U.S. Council for World Freedom,” itself interconnected with the “World Anti-Communist League.”
Paul Begala observed thus to NBC’s Tom Brokaw on Meet The Press just yesterday (via RawStory.com):
“So where’s the outrage?”
In at least one respect, I believe that palin is going to be a maverick. The GOP has a shock coming in that she is going to be the single biggest pain in the ass that the entire party has. I have no use for her, but she is going to gut the GOP. Watch, this should be a totally hysterical sideshow of the election. O Henry wrote a short story called The Ransom of Red Chief. Before palin is through with the GOP, I will bet that they will club together to pay her to become a Democrat. Anything to get her out of their hair.