Palin the Maverick! Insurgency Rising in McCain camp

As The McCain campaign contemplates the prospect of a crushing defeat for the Republican Party, the recriminations have begun, with reports that the vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, has gone maverick on her running mate.

Politico.com had an interesting story called The Palin Insurgency

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain’s camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain’s decline.

“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

There are growing recriminations against Mrs Palin and her public performance in the McCain camp, which is being blamed for John McCain’s decline.

An average of recent polls compiled by the website RealClearPolitics gives Barack Obama an eight-point lead nationally over the Arizona Republican.

Politico quoted a senior Republican close to Mrs Palin as saying:

“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane”

He said she had begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

“I think she’d like to go more rogue.”

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

Those close to Senator McCain accused Mrs Palin of deliberately straying off script, criticising recorded campaign phone messages when the campaign supported their use, and saying she disagreed with the decision to pull out of Michigan.
One McCain adviser said:

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone”

“She does not have any relationships or trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. 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.”

During the weekend Mrs Palin had to deal with more ridicule after The New York Times reported that the highest-paid person on the McCain campaign this month was Mrs Palin’s travelling make-up artist, Amy Strozzi.

The McCain-Palin campaign paid Amy Strozzi, the GOP vice presidential nominee’s traveling makeup artist, $22,800 for the first two weeks of October, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission last night. Strozzi received $13,200 for her work in September.

Hockey-mom, yeah right!

Ms Strozzi was paid more than Senator McCain’s chief foreign affairs adviser, Randy Scheunemann. Angela Lew, Mrs Palin’s travelling hair stylist, received $US10,000 in the first two weeks of October.

It follows revelations last week that the campaign had spent $US150,000 at upmarket department stores to equip Mrs Palin with a chic wardrobe for the campaign trail.
But the biggest blow to Mrs Palin has been her relentless lampooning by the comic Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live which has highlighted her weaknesses in the few interviews and a debate she has done.

The main criticism from the Palin camp seems to be of two senior McCain advisers.
The chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and the press secretary, Nicole Wallace, who are blamed for keeping her cosseted from the media and then putting her up for a high-stakes interview with the CBS News journalist Katie Couric.

A McCain insider said:

“These people are going to try to shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves”

“A number of Governor Palin’s staff have not had her best interests at heart, and they have not had the campaign’s best interests at heart.”

But if there are recriminations now, much worse is to come. Those close to Mrs Palin say she sees herself as the potential frontrunner for Republican presidential candidate in 2012.

The party is also facing a catharsis as it struggles to contain a looming war within the party between fiscal conservatives who have been scathing of the Palin choice, and conservatives who adore her.

Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter and a columnist with The Wall Street Journal, said Mrs Palin was a

“symptom and expression of a new vulgarisation of Ameri- can politics”

Technorati Tags: 2008 Election, john mccain, maverick, politics, Sarah Palin

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