Did McCain Botch the Sarah Palin Pick?
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers.
The Sarah Palin backlash—or comeback—is underway. Misused by the McCain campaign, then dissed by anonymous McCainiacs as a haughty diva, those who think the senator and his staff are to blame are starting to speak out. And we're not talking about those who traveled with the Alaska governor who quickly took a shining to her and chafed when the McCain team botched her coming out on the campaign trail. Now I'm hearing from key Republicans on Capitol Hill and GOP pollsters who believe that the McCain campaign should have put her out to talk about energy and political independence—her two best issues—instead of making her the conservative attack dog.
Said one pollster: "The McCain campaign took this person and completely botched her assets." What's more, the pollster said that in Palin, the McCain campaign had an expert on one of the key issues that was on the minds of Americans: energy prices. "They should have used her knowledge and focus on her expertise." And the pollster said on background that the campaign should have played up her reputation as a political maverick.
Instead, the campaign "took her and turned her into an attack dog and she wasn't good at it." And it hurt her national image, with one internal GOP poll putting her positive to negative image at 48 percent to 48 percent.
Can she come back? One who thinks yes is McCain's own pollster, Bill McInturff, who says, "She will be a major surrogate, a major player."
Tags: presidential election 2008 | Republicans | John McCain | Sarah Palin
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Yes, Expert on Energy Matters
It might help for some people to actually research before posting: before becoming Governor she served on the Alaska Energy Commission and helped clean up the fraud while there. If you think she is a ditz you would all do well to view the one hour interview on CNBC right before she was announced as running mate to McCain... she was concise and knowledgeable, Maria B was very impressed by her and had nothing but praise after the interview. The McCain campaign totally blew their roll out of Palin and so many jealous people in the GOP who had minions working on his campaign didn't help.
what?
Firstly, energy was way down on the list of American's priorities by the time Palin got on the ticket.
Second, contrary to what you seem to believe, she showed a thorough misunderstanding of the role of energy. I'm sorry, but having gas in your state does *not* make you an expert on national security.
Third, unnamed pollsters? These are the best pundits you can find to back up your claims?
Finally, wasn't good at being an attack dog? Palin was only ever going to do one of two things: 1) get the alienated Hillary Democratic voter or 2) get the white bigot voter. She obviously couldn't do #1, but was very effective at #2. There was no way she could have done both. Her only "contribution" to the McCain campaign so far as I can tell was her ability to be the "attack dog".
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