[Rhodes22-list] Palin the rogue

[David Bradley]

It looks like the McCain camp thinks Palin has turned rogue candidate.
 Another example to me of lack of experience in the majors.

Dave





http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html

Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says

Story Highlights

Sources say there is brewing tension between McCain aides and Palin

Palin aide says she is trying to take control of her message

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," says a McCain adviser


>From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King CNN

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day,
long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov.
Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense,
they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become
increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going
rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to
"bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged
roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they
privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an
instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often
used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the
campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling
reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of
Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself
more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain
adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us,
her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next
leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as
they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

A Palin associate defended her, saying that she is "not good at
process questions" and that her comments on Michigan and the robocalls
were answers to process questions.

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But this Palin source acknowledged that Palin is trying to take more
control of her message, pointing to last week's impromptu news
conference on a Colorado tarmac.

Tracey Schmitt, Palin's press secretary, was urgently called over
after Palin wandered over to the press and started talking. Schmitt
tried several times to end the unscheduled session.

"We acknowledge that perhaps she should have been out there doing
more," a different Palin adviser recently said, arguing that "it's not
fair to judge her off one or two sound bites" from the network
interviews.

The Politico reported Saturday on Palin's frustration, specifically
with McCain advisers Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt. They helped
decide to limit Palin's initial press contact to high-profile
interviews with Charlie Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, which
all McCain sources admit were highly damaging.

In response, Wallace e-mailed CNN the same quote she gave the
Politico: "If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal
belief is that the most honorable thing to do is to lie there."

But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended
the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was
picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the
missteps could have been a lot worse.

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and
international issues and on McCain's record.

"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was
dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the
process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was
probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in
history."

Schmitt came to the back of the plane Saturday to deliver a statement
to traveling reporters: "Unnamed sources with their own agenda will
say what they want, but from Gov. Palin down, we have one agenda, and
that's to win on Election Day."

Yet another senior McCain adviser lamented the public recriminations.

"This is what happens with a campaign that's behind; it brings out the
worst in people, finger-pointing and scapegoating," this senior
adviser said.

This adviser also decried the double standard, noting that Democratic
nominee Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, has gone off
the reservation as well, most recently by telling donors at a
fundraiser that America's enemies will try to "test" Obama.

Tensions like those within the McCain-Palin campaign are not unusual;
vice presidential candidates also have a history of butting heads with
the top of the ticket.

John Edwards and his inner circle repeatedly questioned Sen. John
Kerry's strategy in 2004, and Kerry loyalists repeatedly aired in
public their view that Edwards would not play the traditional attack
dog role with relish because he wanted to protect his future political
interests.

Even in a winning campaign like Bill Clinton's, some of Al Gore's
aides in 1992 and again in 1996 questioned how Gore was being
scheduled for campaign events.

Jack Kemp's aides distrusted the Bob Dole camp and vice versa, and Dan
Quayle loyalists had a list of gripes remarkably similar to those now
being aired by Gov. Palin's aides.

With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting that
McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be
looking after her own future.

"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic
pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on
'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature.
She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day,
voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and
personally