Opening the Day: Will Palin Drop Out?

by: Matt Stoller

Tue Sep 02, 2008 at 10:22


(thnx kbuck, and check out gearmonkey's)

Really the only question out there is about Palin - will she stay on the ticket?

I don't know.  Do you?  What else are you reading?

Matt Stoller :: Opening the Day: Will Palin Drop Out?

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Opening the Day: Will Palin Drop Out? | 62 comments
Surely she HAS to stay on the ticket (4.00 / 12)
Dumping a VP choice after announcing it is about as close to conceding the election as you can get.  You'd be openly admitting that you completely, utterly, totally bungled the one key decision that every presidential campaign is faced with.  

Plus, the one area where Palin does seem to have given their campaign a boost--an uptick in enthusiasm from the party base--would also be shattered if they replaced her, considering that any potential replacement would either be not that exciting (Pawlenty) and/or actively opposed by parts of the base (Romney, or someone much more obviously anathema to the base, i.e. Ridge or Joementum).  

I just don't see any way they aren't stuck with her.  Picking her was hasty and unserious, but dumping her would truly be a disaster.    

I'm leaning this way but also (4.00 / 1)
considering opening an Intrade account to throw down some cash on just the opposite. Currently they've pegged her dropping out at 11%; I'd say it's more like 30%. It'll rise before it drops as all of these scandals emerge in the post-Gustav MSM world.
[ Parent ]
Do it! (4.00 / 1)
Open the account! I want a corner widget tracking her Intrade account! as it passes 40% it might even get CNN attention.

Change
"We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.
[ Parent ]
Exactly, Its not about it coming true! (0.00 / 0)
its about just getting the media to speculate about it. the speculation alone is a candidacy killer!

I love this tread topic! Will she drop out?

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

[ Parent ]
VP 4 ever (0.00 / 0)
She'll never drop out, she's got the personality of a bull terrier. Once she gets her teeth into the VP slot she'll never let go.
[ Parent ]
The Convention hasn't voted for her as VP nominee yet (0.00 / 0)
so it's not really up to her yet.  If the delegates don't vote for her, she's not the VP pick.  If Party leaders and McCain change their minds, she's SOL.  But I doubt very much that'll happen.
[ Parent ]
No way out. (0.00 / 0)
Yeah, can you imagine the yakking class droning on day after day after day about the real reasons for her departure, and why nobody thought about those reasons before announcing her? Nobody on the sanity side of Beck and oReilly is going to buy a sudden concern for "taking care of family" at this point. So they're stuck with her, and despite the best efforts of the PC police, she will become the main topic for comics as time goes on.

About the only credible move for McCain at this point would be to have Rove put out a contract on her. Then they could see how the "martyred victim of liberal terrorists" card plays out.

[ Parent ]
Clearly, McCain is in a lose/lose situation (4.00 / 5)
Anyone with access to video clips and a recording of the Clash song, "Should I stay, or should I go", might want to whip up a short video featuring Gov. Palin.

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
excellent idea! (0.00 / 0)


Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
[ Parent ]
Screened For A Day (4.00 / 4)
I'm impressed by the sheer volume of skeletons in her closet.
There are so many of them that one thing, at least is clear: this is one Christian mom who seems to enjoy Halloween.

Now it turns out she was "screened for a day", according to the NYT:

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin's background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin. [Emphasis added]

Ooops!

So who was heading the team?  Homer Simpson?  Or Chief Wiggums?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

Maybe it was Barney Fife? (0.00 / 0)
But seriously, the article paints a slightly clearer picture of how this was more about McCain's ineptness than it was about having vetters who fell down on the job.  

So, OK, McCain knew about Bristol being pregnant as well as some of the other stuff (i.e. the "vetters" probably did do their job to that extent), but not enough other people on his campaign knew about it in time in order to be able to convince him that there were serious downsides to making that pick.  

[ Parent ]
Well, I Hope It Was Wiggums (0.00 / 0)
They don't sell enough donuts up there in Alaska, and it's a cryin' shame.

Now, it's true that Homer could eat more of them.  But Wiggums could actually pay for them.

With his expense account, of course.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
McCain is finished is Palin is dropped (4.00 / 3)
The error is bad enough. Admitting it would finish McCain, so they won't admit it, unless some absolute disqualifying issue emerges, and it will have to be really huge, probably involve serious criminal behavior.

Otherwise, they'll move ahead, hoping she helps with rural anglos in swing states.

something tells me (0.00 / 0)
"admitting you made a mistake" was written out of GOP DNA a few decades ago.
[ Parent ]
Amy Goodman released, describes arrest (4.00 / 3)
Glenn Greenwald with an update video of Amy Goodman describing her arrest. She went to the commanding officer and asked permission for her producer to interview protesters, they threw her to the ground and put her in jail.

Even worse Goodman asked how her producer got a bloody nose, the police said in his lifetime he'd been knifed, what's a bloody nose? The police have turned into unprofessional thugs aided and supported by the FBI and Bush administration.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/g...

nobody is above the law! (0.00 / 0)
especially when you are face down in the concrete with their knee in your back.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
[ Parent ]
Oddly, the GOPs one chance to get out from under this (4.00 / 1)
was probably the "her son is really her grandson" rumors.  If that had panned out, they could have defensibly dropped her as dishonest and too much trouble, but could have said that the situation was so bizarre that they deserve a pass for not figuring it out during vetting.  And the Fundies would have probably had to live with her exit from the ticket at that point, too.

As it is, I think they're pretty stuck.  I don't see how they can drop her for troopergate, or the lies about the Bridge to Nowhere, or Stevens's 527, or the Alaska Independence Party.  But if anyone in the GOP hierarchy is spending serious energy considering replacing her, they're wasting very valuable time and energy not attacking Obama or building up their candidate.

And if McCain was having trouble getting someone to agree to be 1st Mate on the Titanic before, it's gotta be a lot harder once the ship has actually hit the iceberg.

i'm torn (4.00 / 1)
otoh, i can't find any 'serious' news, everyone is just gushing about palin and there seems to be no end in sight. otoh, i'm giddy; americans lurv them some family/sex scandal, and i just can't see how mcshame can recover from this, no matter how much his SCLM helpers try to spin it otherwise. i did a google search on palin (just like the  mccain team, apparently!) and came up with over a million hits about the various pregnancies.
What's Not Serious About Republicans Lying? (0.00 / 0)
i can't find any 'serious' news,

No matter how it starts off, it always ends with people getting killed.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Troopergate is the key (4.00 / 4)
Forget her personal life.  I'm sure Rove would love to see her attacked for personal family problems, watch the backlash from that.

Troopergate is key.  I'm convinced Monegan has the goods on her, given his willingness to talk.  Interesting that she's trying to kick that can down the road.  Perhaps the price of her staying on the ticket is that she has to smother that story.

If she drops out, I expect Huckabee as her replacement, otherwise the fundies will go after McCain with their assault rifles.

Alaska Independence Party (4.00 / 10)
That is huge.  Think of the talking points Republicans would use if a Democrat were invovled:  I wonder if Palin's Flag lapel pin has 49 stars on it?  Does she recite the pledge of allegiance?  She doesn't even want to be American.  

[ Parent ]
Alaska First (4.00 / 1)
is the motto of the AIP, and when discussing the vice presidency, she went out of her way to place it in the context of what it would help her to do for the state of Alaska.  


[ Parent ]
really??? (0.00 / 0)
that is too funny...

Kind of goes agains the "Country First" tagline, unless Alaska actually secedes and you're an alaskan. So will McCain apply for Alaskan citizenship?

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers

[ Parent ]
A agree completely with this sentiment. (0.00 / 0)
Ultimately the Rs have to weigh the damage done by a VP nominee who may be indicted and who was until a decade ago a member of a secessionist party.  If she is indicted before election day, keeping her on the ticket would be worse than getting rid of her.  If the AIP involvement blows up and there is an ongoing discussion about the R VP nominee wanting her state to secede from the nation then, again, I think it would be worse to keep her than to boot her.  And really, the latter is the bigger deal.  A major part of the R playbook has, and continues to be, painting the Ds as unpatriotic.  How can you make this claim when your VP nominee hated this country so much that she wanted her state to secede.  I actually think the odds are that she will not be on the ticket come November.  
[ Parent ]
It's Not Like She Cut Her Ties With Them! (0.00 / 0)
She still proudly associates with them.  Don't let her off the hook. There's nothing particularly past tense about this. The AIP itself argues for the need to have allies in other parties, and Palin is the best example of this they've got.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent ]
Can a secessionist be a patriot? (0.00 / 0)
or is that a rhetorical question?

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
In the South (0.00 / 0)
it isn't. Great "patriots": Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, etc.
[ Parent ]
Aren't the folks that see the Confederates are patriots already (0.00 / 0)
voting for McCain?  

Palin's "Alaska First" concept directly contradicts the "Country First" slogan he has plastered all of the Excel center and has used to attack Obama.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
McCain or (0.00 / 0)
Ron Paul. But I'm not saying necessarily that Palin's selection was a play for the Ron Paul voter. Just that what seems so obviously irrational to you and to me has a way of being rationalized in the minds of people -- not just in the South BTW -- who will view Palin as "one of their kind" regardless of the totally incongruous positions that have been put forth by her.  
[ Parent ]
Palin puts Alaska before country (0.00 / 0)
Palin has never done anything for any state in the lower 48. Every other sentence in public she says Alaska, Alaska, Alaska. It is more than the usual Governor promoting her state. McCain's campaign has to change their slogan from Country First to Alaska First.  
[ Parent ]
I'm thinking it's the contra-maverick memeplex (0.00 / 0)
in combo with lousy-fucking-choice memplex.

Which would indicate the Bridge to Nowhere/pro-Stevens/serial politically motivated firings/earmarks issues will hurt the most.

[ Parent ]
Same scenario I posted yesterday... (0.00 / 0)
Suppose McCain dumps Palin, says "f--- you!" to the base (because it's now completely out in the open that they can't be trusted), and selects Sen. Joe Lieberman? Wouldn't he be the "maverick" again? And isn't it imaginable that quite a few GOP-ers would hold their noses on Election Day and think the switch was justified? Personally, a McCain-Lieberman ticket was always the possibility that made me the most apprehensive. Sure, Lieberman's pro-choice, but the idea of putting an independent next in line for the White House could really be spun as "post-partisan." And also, I'm not sure that, say, Pawlenty or Bailey Hutchi(n)son would climb aboard a sinking-ship of a ticket that passed them over so spectacularly. Lieberman wouldn't care--and boy, would he campaign hard. It'd be like the Energizer Bunny or something.


"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
But nobody likes Lieberman (0.00 / 0)
He's not that good a campaigner, and nobody takes him seriously anymore.

And did you see the Florida poll we linked to in Quick Hits last week?  They polled various VP choices for McCain (this was before Palin was announced), and Joementum was the worst choice by far, not only in terms of failing to boost support for the ticket, but actually dragging it down as well.

[ Parent ]
Besides, (4.00 / 2)
the Base would have to go through a divisive fight over whether Lieberman is the correct kind of Jew for bringing about the Apocalypse.
[ Parent ]
That would have been true (0.00 / 0)
before he picked Palin, but now he's going to switch from an absolutist anti-abortion, climate-change denying creationist to a Lieberman, who would easily be the most liberal Republican in America? With McCain, "maverick" is already starting to morph into "nuts". Replacing Palin with Lieberman would clinch the deal.
[ Parent ]
Phew... (0.00 / 0)
...missed that Florida poll in "Quick Hits" last week. Thanx. There's still a part of me, though, that thinks if Palin's out, dialing up the "kray-zy" in McCain's campaign might be a plus. I mean, he can't just say, "Oops!"

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
[ Parent ]
Or… (0.00 / 0)
..."heh, heh...my staff kept mentioning this term 'vetting' to me.  I thought they were talking about POWs."

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
[ Parent ]
If this gets out she will too (4.00 / 2)
"I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions."

From the front page of Alaska Independence Party

http://www.akip.org/introducti...

Great! (0.00 / 0)
Provides all the justification necessary for someone in the punditocracy to ask her for clarification as to her loyalty to the USA.

Now, will they do it?

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
one scenario (4.00 / 2)
McCain could "reluctantly" accept Palin's decision not to be on the ticket, and try to spin it furiously as the liberals and their allies in the media as having viciously and unfairly attacked a poor, defenseless woman.

Hey, they were dumb enough to think this pick would work in the first place.  No reason they couldn't double down on stupid in a base-friendly manner.  The freepers would eat it up.

"John McCain says he can keep America safe (4.00 / 3)
by standing up to Bin Laden and Ahmedinejad and Putin -- and he can't even stand up to a bunch of bloggers googling his VP pick while munching Doritos in their mom's basements?"
[ Parent ]
LOL (0.00 / 0)
Don't forget about how they're all playing Dungeons & Dragons too.
[ Parent ]
Slander! (0.00 / 0)
I'll have you know I have a perfectly good space in mom's attic. Ever since that last big flood that ruined my Conan the Barbarian comix collection.
[ Parent ]
Colbert is going to LOVE Palin (0.00 / 0)
she shares in his hate of (polar) BEARS!  and Librarians!

maybe she will consent to an interview with him. heheh

but she looks like a librarian! (0.00 / 0)

And Jon Stewart's take - she's not just a librarian, she's a Cinemax librarian!



"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers

[ Parent ]
Of Course She Will. (4.00 / 2)
Once she does, McCain will deliver a major address advocating single payer healthcare.  Karl Rove will be found dead, leaving a suicide note expressing remorse for stealing two elections.  Bush will announce that he never really understood any of the the WMD intelligence, but he had a feeling that Cheney lied to him.  The polls will tilt toward Obama 90-10.  The DLC will dissolve and Russ Feingold will be elected majority leader.
:-) (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Palin's speech to the convention (4.00 / 1)
I am worried that people are underestimating Palin

Assuming she lasts that far, her address to the convention may be the interesting one.  I wouldn't be surprised to see an appeal to racist white working poor who feel threatened by an AA President, couched in terms of "liberal elites."  You could see the prep work being done this weekend.  Perhaps Clinton will be rebranded by the Republicans as a working class hero and victim of liberal affirmative action.

At this point, nothing's off the table.

The stuff (4.00 / 1)
that is coming is inadvertently giving the GOP Convention something it wants": Drama.

I can already here the paragraph where she defends her daughter - the convention will go wild.

[ Parent ]
Having seen her speak ... (0.00 / 0)
Like a lot of people, I've been following a lot of this stuff fairly closely and have seen a good bit of video of her speaking.  She's a good interviewer where she can dodge and play folksy but really, she's a horrible speechifier.  The twangy accent is, as a lot of people have pointed out, eerily reminiscent of Frances McDormand in Fargo.  She lacks any kind of forceful presence on stage, especially with McCain staring at her ass.

Obviously, we can't take anything for granted; she may end up with a rip-roaring speech written perfectly for her.  But really, the best description of her I've read so far is "Harriet Myers without the gravitas."

A clip from an MTV interview talking about Ron Paul (from Matt Yglesias):
   

MTV Street Team: Well, a lot of students asked me to ask you, Ron Paul,
   cult-following in Alaska....

   Governor Sarah Palin: He's cool. He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's so independent. He's independent of like the party machine, I'm like, right on, so am I. The party machinery, on both sides of the party, ya know, Americans are tiring of the incessant partisanship that gets in the way of just doing the right thing for this country.

Being able to relate to people on their level is important, but it's also important to come across as knowledgeable and professional on the level of a head of a state.  I just can't decide if she sounds like a fifteen year old or the mother of a fifteen year old trying to sound like one.

[ Parent ]
So what? (0.00 / 0)
That's been the Republican strategy all summer. Hasn't worked.
[ Parent ]
Sarah Palin = G. Harold Carswell (4.00 / 1)
Just another interpretation

As Senator Roman Hruska of NE said in 1970, when this Nixon nominee to the Supreme Court was accused of being mediocre:

So what if he is mediocre? There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? We can't have all Brandeises, Cardozos, and Frankfurters and stuff like that there.

There are a number of media apologists out there who are saying that Palin's foibles suggest that she's ordinary like the rest of us.

I suggest that these media apologists are just like Hruska.

Let's pick the president by lottery (0.00 / 0)
If an ordinary person with no national record represents America okay then why do we need political parties and elections. Let's just pick our president by random lottery. We could have less crooked psychopaths in our leadership that way.
[ Parent ]
the last eight years (0.00 / 0)
really have been a montage of Philip K. Dick novels, huh?
[ Parent ]
Turns out, she's for banning books too (4.00 / 2)

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Time: "A Rough Record"

I believed she was the Library director (4.00 / 1)
or head librarian or some such and I believe she either was fired or was in the process of being fired when the petition drive forced her to back off.

You've made an important connection here -- the now infamous (already) attack on the librarian was as much about fundy censorship as it was about political vindictiveness.

Unless these are two different people...

[ Parent ]
She Stays... (0.00 / 0)
But dominates the news cycle...drowning out McCain.  Republicans claim sexist media at fault.  Obama wins in landslide!  Talk starts right away, Palin 2012...
Failn' Palin will drop out (0.00 / 0)
Some are betting that McCain's current VP pick, Sarah "Failin'" Palin, won't last through Friday. Others are not so sure. Josh Marshall argues:
The consequences of what I think everyone can now see was a bad decision are huge. The consequences of admitting it was a mistake are something like catastrophic. Much of the remainder of the campaign, I think, would devolve into a picking over of just what McCain was thinking. So while McCain's strategy is based on running on his purportedly superior judgment, much of the campaign coverage would focus on his demonstrably bad judgment.

I would agree with one of his points (see my emphasis) but not with his rationale and conclusions. It's true that the Republicans never, ever admit mistakes. (Look at Iraq.) Nevertheless, much of the campaign coverage already focuses on McCain's bad judgement and that focus will continue, regardless. Furthermore, with investigators now (finally) on the ground in Alaska, his campaign is now realizing that the next eight weeks will probably suffer almost daily disclosures of new juicy bits, driving the nail home.

The way I see it, McCain's campaign set up their own exit plan yesterday. The announcement of Bristol's fifth-month pregnancy not only called the dogs off of the earlier, alleged one, but it also set up the narrative for Palin's withdrawing herself from the nomination, to protect her family from the far-left media wolves. The evangelicals will forgive McCain because his heart was in the right place.

Even with Palin off the ticket, the media will continue to nibble on all these Palin threads through election day.  But, rather than be an embarrassment for McCain, the continuing harrassment of a great American family will only serve to elicit more sympathy (and votes) from the public. The eventual announcement of Bristol's "miscarriage" will pick up still more sympathy votes.

Rove is a genius. He may not have saved the election with this new plan, but he has saved the Republicans for the next election.

If Palin takes herself out of the VP nomination (0.00 / 0)
while citing that she had underestimated how vicious the misogynistic left-wing media, and particularly the bloggers, would be to her and to her daughter, I think McCain could get away without too much focus on his poor judgement.

Question is: who would agree to run as his second-choice for VP?

Maybe it would give Cheney a chance to demonstrate that he can put the country ahead of his plans to rake in $millions by returning to the private sector?

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
Michael Moore's take (4.00 / 1)
But before everyone gets all smug and self-righteous about the Palin selection, remember where you live. You live in a nation of gun owners and hunters. You live in a country where one out of three girls get pregnant before they are 20. You live in a nation of C students. Knocking Bush for being a C student only endeared him to the nation of C students. Knock Palin for having kids, for having a kid who's having a baby, for anything that is part of her normalness -- a normalness that looks very familiar to so many millions of Americans -- well, you do this at your own peril. Assuming she's still on the ticket two weeks from now, she will be a much tougher opponent than anyone expects. You live in a country that voted for Dan Quayle.

I'm prone to think that Moore is underestimating us. Then I look at how Charles Mathesian is treating Palin's travails over at Politco.com:

Fishing permit violations. A blue-collar husband who racked up a DUI citation as a 22-year-old. An unmarried teenage daughter who is pregnant and a nasty child custody battle involving a family member.

All of this, to one degree or another, has surfaced in recent days as a result of efforts to discredit or undermine Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But these revelations may have the opposite effect: In one sense, they could reinforce how remarkably unremarkable she is.

So far - and it is hard to tell what the future may hold for Palin's unexpected national candidacy - the travails of the Palin family probably seem awfully familiar to many average Americans.

Get that. Versaille pundits have such deep insights into what "average Americans" are really like: breaking the law, drunk driving, divorce, out-of-wedlock births. Sounds like your family, doesn't it?

Bouyed by such liberal snark and Versaille arrogance, Palin may come out smelling like a rose.

they are not pundits they are circus contortionists (4.00 / 1)
They are doing unbelievable backflips to justify everything they called immoral before. They are blind power worshippers, they will say anything to be lapdogs to power, they have no scruples.

Everyone knows Obama would be Crucified if his family was "awfully familiar to many average Americans" like Palin's.

Just close your eyes and repeat the Party slogan IOKIYAR IOKIYAR IOKIYAR, join our party and you'll get a free pass for life!!

[ Parent ]
Or Maybe (0.00 / 0)
Just maybe they'll think, "Gee, I wanted to have a beer with Bush, and I ended up with an 8-year hangover.

"Maybe I can pass on Palin, and just stick with Desparate Housewives and the daytime soaps for my domestic comedy and drama fix."

As Judy Tenuta would say, "It could happen."

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Opening the Day: Will Palin Drop Out? | 62 comments





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