The tensions and their increasingly public airing provide a revealing coda to the ill-fated McCain-Palin ticket, hinting at the mounting turmoil of a campaign that was described even by many Republicans as incoherent, negative and badly run. Full Story »
Posted by Derek Hawkins
Many in the GOP blame McCain. Despite media attacks on Palin, some of them deserved and others mean-spirited or sexist, McCain should not have put her on the ticket. Had he chosen Giuliani or Romney, and the RNC scheduled Palin to deliver her rousing speech as part of the convention, as the Democrats did with Obama in 2004, setting her up for a future campaign, Tuesday's vote would have been closer, and the Republicans would have had an answer to the economic collapse. The Times doesn't provide this backdrop.
“Every book I’ve read about a campaign is that the one that won, it was a perfect and beautifully run campaign with geniuses running it and incredible messaging, etcetera,” Mr. McCain said then. “And always the one that lost, ‘Oh, completely screwed up, too much infighting, bad people, etcetera.’ So if I win, I believe that historians will say, ‘Way to go, he fine-tuned that campaign, and he got the right people in the right place and as the campaign grew, he gave them more responsibility.’ If I lose,” people will say, “ ‘That campaign, always in disarray.’ ”
Sometimes campaigns fail for good reasons, and McCain’s did because it was poorly managed.
The article doesn't mention why Palin was chosen in the first place. That is the untold story that I have advocated on NewsTrust since her selection. My thesis is the Democratic convention came first, so McCain's camp waited until Biden was selected, and then acted on advice of a strategist to select the VP most able to blunt Obama's message. And it did, in the short term, but inevitably unraveled, as elections--like jury trials--expose motive. And the jury gave its verdict on Tuesday.