Et tu, Romney?

Remember when I said that Mitt Romney would try and sink Sarah Palin behind the scenes?

Gotcha.

Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House, have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election. "Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012," says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. "The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He's in charge on November 5th."

For Sarah

Now that she thinks she's going to run the Senate:

The One Term Stunt

Several writers have been speculating that McCain may try to pull some sort of stunt tonight, including, but not limited to announcing a pledge to only serve one term. The rationale behind this is: John McCain will put country first ahead of his own political ambitions.

I want McCain to lose, but let me offer some free advice:

That may have been an intriguing tactic six months ago. And probably a much better one at the RNC in September. But now, such a move would backfire worse than suspending his campaign again.

Every time people looked at McCain they would think one thing: Sarah Palin 2012.

McCain and Palin are fighting

This was inevitable. McCain is the last Republican Presidential candidate of the 20th Century. Palin wants to think that she's the first of the 21st. With the race clearly slipping from their grasp, Palin is now throwing John McCain under the bus.

Sarah Palin is now out for herself. The next three and a half weeks should be fascinating.

From The Times of London:

With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign.

[...]

“Sarah Palin is no fool. She sees the same thing and wants to salvage what she can. She is positioning herself for the future. Her best days could be in front of her. She wants to look as though she was the fighter, the person with the spunk who was out there taking it to the Democrats.”

The Historic McCain-Palin Ticket

Not quite the way Gerry Ferraro would have imagined it:

Now that Sarah Palin has been found to have abused her powers, violated state ethics, and lied about it, I did a little digging and found an interesting historical footnote.

The McCain/Palin ticket is the first in American history in which both candidates were found to have violated ethics standards before a national election.

Tina Fey Saves America

Here's proof:

About 33 percent of independents said the "Tina Fey effect" is hurting the McCain-Palin ticket, compared with 9 percent who said it was helpful, a Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports survey says. The figures were nearly identical among independents in the survey.

Tina Fey 2, Republicans 0.

UPDATE:

Are the Republicans fighting back by trying to make Sarah Palin look less like Tina Fey?

Keith's Special Comment

Women in glass igloos, shouldn't cast stones...

The Conservation of Comedy

This year, Tina Fey is having precisely an equal and opposite reaction from Will Ferrell in 2000.

Where Ferrell took Bush's folksy, mentally deficient "charm" and turned it into a likable positive, Fey is doing exactly the same thing to Palin, but turning it into a devastating negative.



Turnabout is fair play.

Jon Meachem Explains It All

A fascinating look inside Palinworld and dangers Sarah Palin's "you betcha" politics pose to the country.

Mark Halperin is back to being an idiot

Biden and Palin both get B's? Give me a break. He cleaned her clock.

Joe Biden takes the Kobayashi Maru

Everyone I know is worried. "She's won the expectations game. She's going to win this debate. Ugh!"

Guess what? They're probably right.

Biden is screwed. If he's too mean, he's a jerk. If he's too nice, he's condescending.

If he ignores her attacks, he cedes her 90 minutes to run up his negatives unchecked.

If he knows too much, he's a know-it-all.

He's going to gaffe. Everyone knows that.

He's probably going to try to cop a feel--and that's just how he'll treat Gwen Ifill.

Guess what?

It. Does. Not. Matter.

Sure Sarah can staunch the bleeding. She may even get an hour and a half of folksy charm masking snotty attacks.

But at the end of the day, Sarah Palin is not going to win this election for John McCain. Maybe she will acquit herself and her future political reputation. Maybe McCain will even bounce in the polls.

But if any of you want to give me even money that Palin is going to somehow remain gaffe-free for the next 33 days, I will gladly eat your money.

Any takers?

The Very Best of Sarah Palin

Thanks, Talking Points Memo!

Gwen Strikes Back

This is promising.

"I've got a pretty long track record covering politics and news," [Ifill] said. "so I'm not particularly worried that one-day blog chatter is going to destroy my reputation. The proof is in the pudding. They can watch the debate tomorrow night and make their own decisions about whether or not I've done my job."

Hopefully, she has the integrity to live up to this.

Failing that, hopefully she looks at the polls and realizes there's no profit in kowtowing to right-wing bullies.

Now it can be told

We now know why John McCain suspended his campaign.


Watch CBS Videos Online

It's actually worse than I thought.

On Saturday, when Tina Fey does this bit, I hope she whips out a flute.

Attacking Ifill

Just a thought: If things are going badly for Palin tomorrow night, do you think she might change tactics (or is it strategies?) and actually attack Ifill herself for being biased? This seems to be Palin's favorite move in her Couric interview.

I would argue it's a losing strategy, but it certainly would create the dominant story coming out of the debate--and it would be a story that wasn't about Palin's complete lack of knowledge about, well, anything.

The Palin Adventure Is Just Beginning

Wow. Just wow.

And even worse stuff coming today...

The future of Sarah Palin

Hopefully, we will never hear from her again after November 5th. Obviously the Republicans will trot her out to fundraise, but she is such a knucklehead even they can't possibly try and position her again for higher office.

In short, she will become the Geraldine Ferraro of the Republican Party.

Which, I guess, means that someday she will piss off Republican voters by NOT being racist.

The Early Political Life of Sarah Palin

In what alternate universe does anyone believe that Sarah Palin knew who Joe Biden even was in the 2nd grade?

How about the 12th?

How about during college(s)?

How about two years ago?

Bonus fun fact: Sarah Palin has two less alma maters than John McCain has houses.

Thoughts about the VP Debate

Moderator Gwen Ifill is the key. I think she will work, generally, to the Democrats and Biden's favor, for the following reasons:

1. She is a damn good journalist.
2. She works for PBS and is, I imagine, far less ratings obsessed than an anchor from a broadcast network. Result: less focus on silly tabloid stories and gossip items. A conversation about pigs, lipstick, Track and babies instead of the Fed Bailout, Iraq, Afghanistan and things like, you know, actual policy.
   

There is a reason why Jim Lehrer was roundly praised by debate watchers: no stupid, silly season questions. His employment at PBS was key reason why.

3. She is a contender for the "Meet The Press" job. With David Gregory (mercifully) fading, and no other option clearly manifesting itself (scratch Olbermann and Matthews), one has to think that Ifill's chances are as good as they have ever been. Consider this to be her ultimate audition. Conduct a debate worthy of NBC's Sunday and she makes the strongest case she can. Conduct a debate worthy of Access Hollywood--not so much.

It should be noted that #3 does contradict #2 slightly--obviously the higher ups are going to be looking at how big of a draw Ifil's is. My guess is not that big--but Sarah Palin sure will be.

4. With the sexism card in the air, Sarah Palin in a defensive post-Couric crouch and an expectation that Biden will somehow make an ass of himself towards Palin, the fact that Ifill is not a white man will undercut the "old-boy network Biden and the debate moderator ganged up on poor Sarah" narrative that could easily have emerged from the debate. Biden can still get himself in trouble--but no one likes watching two against one, so he may have dodged a bullet here.

UPDATE:

Ha. The McCain camp is already trying to pressure Ifill:

Princess Palin

A very smart reader writes:

Did you ever think that the

McCain/Palin/Lieberman triad

is similar to

Charles/Diana/Camilla?

Palin pulled media attention completely away from McCain...

Did you see the COMPLETE COMFORT in McCain's body language in DC, yesterday, with Lieberman by his side?