Advisers Say Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Selecting Lieberman (What Pick Says About mcpow)

[tekisui]

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/us/politics/31reconstruct.html?ref=politics

WASHINGTON — In the end, the choice of his running mate said more about Senator John McCain and his image of himself than it did about Sarah Palin, the little-known governor of Alaska whose selection has shaken up the presidential race.

For weeks, advisers close to the campaign said, Mr. McCain had wanted to name as his running mate his good friend Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat turned independent. But by the end of last weekend, the outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that Mr. McCain would fill out the Republican ticket with Mr. Lieberman, a supporter of abortion rights, had become too intense to be ignored.

With time running out, and after a long meeting with his inner circle in Phoenix, Mr. McCain finally picked up the phone last Sunday and reached Ms. Palin at the Alaska State Fair. Although the campaign’s polling on Mr. McCain’s potential running mates was inconclusive on the selection of Ms. Palin — virtually no one had heard of her, a McCain adviser said — the governor, who opposes abortion, had glowing reviews from influential social conservatives.

Mr. McCain was comfortable with two others on his short list, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. But neither was the transformative, attention-grabbing choice Mr. McCain felt he needed, top campaign advisers said, to help him pivot from his image as the custodian of the status quo to a change agent like his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama.

Not least, Mr. Obama’s decision to pass over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate opened the possibility for Republicans to put a woman on the ticket and pick off some of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters.

At 11 a.m. on Thursday, at the McCain vacation compound near Sedona, Ariz., Mr. McCain invited Ms. Palin to join him on the ticket. He hardly knew her, and she had virtually no foreign policy experience, but Ms. Palin was a “kindred spirit,” a McCain adviser said. Mr. McCain was betting, the adviser said, that she would help him reclaim the mantle of maverick that he had lost this year.

(snip)

Last Sunday, 24 hours after Mr. Obama announced his running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Mr. McCain met with his senior campaign team at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Phoenix. By then, campaign advisers said, the group had long decided that Mr. McCain’s “experience versus change” argument against Mr. Obama had run its course, to the extent that it had worked at all.

At the same time, Mr. Obama’s coming acceptance speech before a stadium of about 80,000 people (and what turned out to be a television audience of nearly 40 million) loomed large. As much as the campaign was publicly dismissing Mr. Obama as a celebrity in a rock-star setting, the concern was that his command of such a large crowd on the last night of the Democratic convention would give him the aura of a president.

(snip)

After Mr. McCain contacted Ms. Palin, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Salter met with her on Wednesday in Flagstaff, Ariz. It was not until the following morning that Ms. Palin traveled to Sedona to meet with Mr. McCain, who then sat down with her for his only interview of a potential running mate.

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[Cronus Protagonist]

1. As I mentioned before, this clear "gut choice" was about bolstering the "maverick" meme

And his base doesn't care about political pandering - they care about gut shots, calling things "like they are". They admire controversial positions on all topics such as letting felons have assault rifles, allow priests and teachers to carry concealed weapons, for example; the main criteria is that the positions piss off "the liberals" to the max.

This Palin pick is about increasing his base's activity and support, getting out the vote (particularly among evangelicals), and puffing up his own chest so he can stand tall on stage after bucking the advice of his political team and thereby dusting off his tarnished mantle of "maverick".

Of course, it's a losing choice, but that isn't what is important to McCain. He knows what it's like to get shot down, or to fly millions of dollars of apparatus into power lines, and in fact, he's just about to cause the most spectacular crash and burn in the history of politics.

If you like "John the Bomb", you gotta admire his gut calls and his flair for spectacular crashes.

:P

[roguevalley]

2. no reflection, no thought, just gut. ugh.

[Connie_Corleone]

3. Here's a frightening quote:

“I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can,” Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For.” “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”

God help us.

[tekisui]

4. That quote needs to be remembered.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Very frightening - but unfortunately just what will attract some people

Some people respect a 'decisive leader' even if all the decisions are wrong, and consider a careful and reflective decision-maker as 'weak' or a 'flip-flopper'.

[nc4bo]

6. Much of the same points can be made about McCain's rumored gambling habits..

that he's rash and impulsive and his philosophy is to win.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/07/06/john-mccain-s-gambling-problem.aspx

The Palin shoe seem to fit.