They’re Making Perot Look Good
Posted by Phoenix Woman on August 30, 2008
The McCain campaign continues its bizarre drunken joyride across the American landscape. Their main strategy seems to be making their rivals laugh themselves to death.
I thought that they’d already vetted Palin, but apparently not, as only now are they sending people up to Alaska to check out the Troopergate story.
One justification for picking Palin: Winning over Hillary supporters. That’s going to be a mite difficult in view of her anti-choice stance, and even more so as more people hear about these comments she made at a Newsweek-sponsored event in March for women politicians:
Once onstage, together with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Palin talked about what women expect from women leaders; how she took charge in Alaska during a political scandal that threatened to unseat the state’s entire Republican power structure, and her feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton. (She said she felt kind of bad she couldn’t support a woman, but she didn’t like Clinton’s “whining.”)
I wonder if they even realize that she backed Romney in the primaries? Or that she laughed in approval as a radio host mocked a colleague of hers who’d survived cancer as being herself a “cancer” and a “bitch”?
This starts to make a perverse kind of sense once we find out that Palin wasn’t McCain’s choice, but was forced upon him because the Fundies that make up the GOP’s base would openly revolt if he went with Lieberman, his favorite by far. (Which is funny as hell, because the Fundies have been spending the last decade or so trying to present themselves as genuine friends of the Jews — or at least of neocon Likudnik types like Lieberman — and not only because they want Israel to be the launching pad for Armageddon.) Ralph Reed is happy as can be, and so is James Dobson, because McCain’s being forced to pick the arch-Fundie Palin over Lieberman, Romney, Pawlenty, or any other top-ranked choice shows once again that the Fundies can vex and control any Republican they choose.
5 Responses to “They’re Making Perot Look Good”
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Mercury Rising 鳯女 
joel hanes said
I think that the much-discussed PUMA vote played very little part in McCain’s choice of Palin.
I saw a long interview that Palin gave to Maria Bartiromo, in which Palin emphasized over and over that Alaska was ready, nay, eager, to produce Energy For America, and that she, Palin, was used to dealing successfully with Big Oil Company Executives (for whom she clearly feels awe and deference). Even Bartiromo’s question about Palin’s husband (a blue-collar oil worker, I gathered) provoked set talking points that can be summarized as “Drill. Drill. Drill”.
So: a white-bread gun-culture social conservative evangelical Protestant Christian for the base.
And a walking advertisement for the Republican approach to energy problems.
LetterMan said
This is etiher the last, desperate ploy of a campaign that knows it is going down the toilet or it is a brilliant political strategy that will win McCain the election this fall.
Given the record McCain has so far about the way he is running his campaign, I suspect this comes under the former category rather than the latter.
Kathy said
If McCain & crew really believe the PUMA stuff, they bought their own propaganda. As for the scandal; are there any Repugs who aren’t being orbited by scandal composed rings and moons?
Kathy said
… and an occasional scandal-meteor strike, to continue the metaphor.
Phoenix Woman said
LetterMan: A-yep.
The irony is that it’s not even McCain’s choice. He wanted Lieberman, but they wouldn’t let him have Lieberman — instead, he had to kowtow once again to the Fundies.