Steve Schmidt: Nominating Palin would be “catastrophic” for the GOP; Update: Video added

I have no inside information but here is my take on Steve Schmidt’s role in the campaign vs. Sarah Palin.

Steve Schmidt was McCain’s campaign manager and had great sway over any decision that McCain would make during the campaign. In addition Schmidt is clearly not an ideological conservative. Everything that has happened since must be seen through these lens.

The most crucial decision that any presidential candidate makes is his choice of a running mate. Realistically the expression “do no harm” has dominated any decision making process. In simplistic terms, do everything in your power to prevent an Eagleton situation from occurring.

As the vetting of potential VP candidates was occurring over the spring and summer in 2008 simultaneously political events and circumstances occurred with regards to the McCain campaign that would influence who the choice would be.

One ongoing or nagging problem for the McCain campaign was its problem with generating any enthusiasm in the “base” for McCain’s candidacy. This is where McCain’s political past (amnesty, McCain-Feingold, the gang of 14) came back to haunt him. I honestly think Schmidt knew this was a problem but McCain I think felt that the “base” would eventually “come around” (where else were they going to go).

Thus his initial choice of Lieberman. What arrogance and hubris when you think about it, to think as a Republican nominee for POTUS that you can win the Presidency without the support of the “base” and then to boot McCain thinks he can thumb his nose at the evangelical and conservative groups in the party and somehow breeze through the convention and get their unqualified support for the Lieberman pick and his candidacy.

It was reported about one week to 10 days before the GOP convention that the word finally was sent to McCain that Lieberman was definitely not acceptable and furthermore conservative groups might walk out of the convention and not endorse the ticket. If this is indeed true why did it take so long for McCain to figure this out and plan for this eventuality. Was this an example of McCain’s ego and classic stubborness overriding common sense? Was this an example of his political naivete and a glaring weakness in his political acumen and could we also assume this also was a weakness in Schmidt’s assessment of the situation and his unability to convince his boss to abandon thinking of choosing Lieberman.

It is my belief on getting the word from the “base” that Lieberman was unacceptable that the McCain campaign was thrown into a loop; and then when Obama chose Biden it further threw the McCain campaign into a semi-panic. Of course the campaign had contingency plans if the Lieberman option did not pan out but how serious were these contingency plans treated by McCain and Schmidt? I would suggest before Biden was chosen, not very high.

Then McCain and Schmidt realized what the political lay of the land was with one week left to go. I can see McCain, Schmidt and all his top advisors sitting around a conference table for hours going over all the other potential VP candidates discussing the pros and cons of each candidate, with the elephant in the room being the potentially disaffected Hillary supporters.

I really believe McCain wanted to choose somebody like Ridge or Pawlenty but this may be one of the times where Schmidt was right and told McCain there was no way in hell he had a chance to win with these fellows in this political climate of the “first black president” and “hope and change”; and even if he chose Romney it would not close the enthusiasm gap among conservatives in his campaign which ahd lingered for the last 6 months. And that had also translated in lower than expected fundraising.

I think on the weekend before Palin was chosen or maybe on the following Monday McCain finally stepped up to the plate and embraced the reality that he had feared: he would have to suck up to a part of the party that he literally had disdain for-the social conservatives and evangelicals. And for McCain to do that was an admission that his arrogant strategy of not bringing conservatives to his tent in the spring and summer had not worked; it had been instead misguided and a colossal mistake in his campaign.

So with that in mind, the charisma of the Messiah and the Hillary factor Schmidt and McCain decided they had to think outside the box, and I believe this was the first time they gave serious consideration to choosing Sarah.

I can see McCain saying I need a conservative who will placate the base, galvanize volunteers to GOTV and increase my fundraising but who will not overshadow my message, because we don’t want to resurrect Reagan conservatism, do we? After checking with Culvahouse who had vetted Palin who told McCain she was “high risk, high reward” McCain talked it over with Schmidt to weigh the pros and cons of choosing Palin. I really think they thought they could “handle her” and make her conform to McCain’s message and toe the line and advertise her as a socon to appeal to the base but still maintain the integrity of the McCain “moderate” message. I honestly think they thought that Sarah being unknown would not attract much attention and also believe they completely missed her “charisma” quotient to potentially overwhelm McCain himself. How they missed that, I really don’t know.

Now to the $64 dollar question. How did Schmidt feel about choosing Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP? I think he considered it like Letterman yesterday confessing to affairs with staffers rather than having to pay over $2m. Schmidt I think he realized if Palin was not chosen McCain had the potential of losing by 15 points and lose in a landslide and that would damage his own career as a political advisor in the future. Thus he reconciled himself to what had to be done but I don’t believe he truly embraced it totally.

And then when Schmidt admitted on Sept 16 that McCain could not win because of the financial meltdown I believe the campaign went downhill from there and on witnessing this Sarah decided to “go rogue” and basically saved the McCain-Palin ticket from being wiped out.

Actually Schmidt should be grateful that Sarah propped the McCain campaign up, but over the last 6 months he has fallen back to his “moderate” roots and attacked Palin over her conservative ideals which he chose to overlook when he agreed with McCain or recommended that she had to be chosen.

That is entirely hypocritical on his part.

technopeasant on October 2, 2009 at 1:32 PM

kangje on October 2, 2009 at 1:35 PM

I DON’T THINK PALIN IS RUNNING IN 2012 ALTHOUGH I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT

Have you not read the tea leaves since January 2009:

1)establishing SarahPAC in late January

2)her speech in the spring to the Alaskan GOP attacking Obama and accusing him of enslaving the nation

3)her reception in June in NY State and her continued attacks on Obama

4)her resignation in July

5)her decision to go into the “wilderness” like Ronald Reagan

6)”death panels” and her attacks on cap and trade

7)her speech in HK which essentially could be what she could run on and to enhance her foreign affairs credentials

8)her book being moved up till Nov 17th from spring 2010

9)and today word that Todd Palin has resigned from his north slope job

What more evidence do you need that she is running? of course she is going to deny it, like all the candidates do, but right now she is proceeding to get all her ducks in a row and building a campaign infrastructure.

Sarah is definitely running in 2012.

technopeasant on October 2, 2009 at 1:49 PM