[Rhodes22-list] Palin the rogue

[Herb Parsons]

Some of us don't care if she makes McCain's aides happy.

David Bradley wrote:
> It looks like the McCain camp thinks Palin has turned rogue candidate.
>  Another example to me of lack of experience in the majors.
>
> Dave
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> http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html
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> 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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> Election Center 2008
> 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
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