Sarah Palin: From Drag to Disaster
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It is not always her fault. But if there is anyone who is holding John McCain’s campaign down, it’s Sarah Palin. I have always believed that John McCain gambled with the country when he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. But with every passing day, every new gaffe, every scandal unearthed; it seems his bigger gamble was with his own campaign.
So what’s latest on Sarah Palin?
First Polls
Latest NBC/Wall Street Journal polls suggest that 55% don’t believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be President, if such a need arises. 47% see her negatively compared to 38% positive. To top it off, she is a bigger problem for McCain than current President Bush.
$150,000 on Clothes
When you are a candidate talking about Joe The Plumber, it would be incredibly stupid to burn average Joe’s salary for THREE YEARS on your clothing for six weeks. But that’s what the Republican National Committee has managed to do. According to Politico, RNC has spent more than $150,000 on Sarah Palin and her family’s clothes and accessories. The bills started accumulating since September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.
So, how many supporters would be happy with such an incredible shopping spree? Big GOP donors see it as an incredible stupid move considering McCain campaign is running low on cash anyways. In fact, some supporters have asked for their money back.
“As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain’s general campaign, I’d like my money back – he can still have my vote,” complained one irate donor on Tuesday.
“I’m not one who says a candidate shouldn’t wear fine clothes,” he added. “I’d just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party’s or the campaign’s, which is really our money as contributors.”
Voracious Reader?
I am also puzzled by her claim that she is a voracious reader in her interview with People magazine as she has failed to demonstrate any substantive knowledge on any issue. She could not even name a newspaper she reads for crying out loud. Even in this interview she fails to give anything substantive that she reads -
How do you get that knowledge?
SP: I’m a voracious reader, always have been. I appreciate a lot of information. I think that comes from growing up in a family of schoolteachers also where reading and seizing educational opportunities was top on my parents’ agenda. That was instilled in me.What do you like to read?
SP: Autobiographies, historical pieces – really anything and everything. Besides the kids and sports, reading is my favorite thing to do.What are you reading now?
SP: I’m reading, heh-heh, a lot of briefing papers on a lot of issues that are in front of us in this campaign.
If she is such a voracious reader, how come she still doesn’t get what the responsibility of Vice President is -
Vice Presidential in charge of the Senate - What’s that all about?
… and there is the claim that VP is in charge of the Senate. In an interview with KUSA, Colorado, Sarah Palin replied to one question as follows -
Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”
PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to, they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.
When asked for clarification from the Senate, ThinkProgress obtained the following statement from Jim Manley, spokesman to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV):
This comment is all the more puzzling because this is at least the 2nd time she has said this. Gov Palin needs to re-read or perhaps read for the first time the Constitution. While the Vice President presides over the Senate, he or she is not in charge of it. Article 1 says The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.
The Senate is part of a co-equal branch of the federal government
This all potentially culminates to -
McCain-Palin Internal Tension
This might be just Chuck Dodd’s wishful thinking but after watching McCain-Palin’s interview with Brian Williams for NBC, his reaction was - this seemed like two people have been forced to sit next to each other. And from the clips I have seen, I could not agree more. If there is no internal tension, then the candidates are not getting enough sleep for sure.
In either case, McCain and Palin seems to have been falling out for weeks now, mostly due to the intensity Sarah Palin has been generating against Obama. Sarah Palin’s second guessing campaign’s decision to pull out of Michigan is unlikely to have made McCain happier. Sarah Palin recently admitted to Rush Limbaugh that she has got “nothing to lose”. She has also been out of sync with the campaign with claims such as she would not have liked robocalls in a perfect world while McCain has been claiming veracity of such calls. Her interview with Katie Couric was devastating enough to demand John McCain’s own appearance on CBS the next day. She was also out of sync with the campaign when she supported cross border attacks in Pakistan. Once again, John McCain had to defend her the very next day in a joint interview.
Overall, my impression is John McCain is very unhappy with the progress or lack of thereof, that Sarah Palin has shown in understanding issues.
Conspiracy Theory
Here is what I believe. Palin is not McCain’s first choice. She is someone he needed to have to keep at least his base excited. With her ambitions becoming apparent, it might not be possible for McCain to keep her content after, and if, he wins the election and becomes the President.
I believe, in John McCain’s dream, he would like to let Sarah Palin go loose after the elections, would like to see her get caught in another power abuse scandal and would like to see her impeached and removed from the office.
Then he can have his buddy Joe Libermann next to him. Afterall, he believes in Country First.
