We have all read the various articles discussing the growing tension between McCain and Palin resulting in Palin essentially using the last week to distance herself from the campaign by blaming the McCain campaign for clothing-gate. The odd thing is that this was all foreseeable, and it illustrates the wisdom of the Biden pick in retrospect. Obama's choice of Biden was solid, but not exciting. Biden is older, and will probably never run for President again. He has likely reached the pinnacle of his political career unless Obama wins. Thus, unlike Palin, Biden has everything invest in an Obama win, because if Obama loses, Biden will likely finish his political career as a Senator.
Palin generated a lot of buzz and early excitement when she was chosen. She received early notariety by throwing other members of her party under the bus. She was also extremely ambitious, as the New Yorker story showed, and angled early on for national recognition by right wing pundits. Palin had a bright RIGHT-WING political future. However, all these elements have exploded in McCain's face. Palin has no loyalty, and she just looks out for herself. While people herald her for pointing out ethical lapses by members of her own party, the fact remains that she threw members of her own party under the bus, not because her strong ethics (she has none), but because she wanted to politically grandstand. Palin is continuing to look out for number one by very vocally pointing out that it was McCain, not her, fault for purchasing $150K in clothes. To further illustrate this, she has taken to wearing some of her own clothes, which merely enforces the notion that she is blaming the McCain campaign.
Palin has also steadily expressed disagreements with the McCain campaign, and has had her surrogates doing battle with McCain surrogates. Why? Because she does not want to take the fall for McCain's campaign, so she is doing her best to throw Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace under the bus. Ironiccally, they actually helped her by avoiding embarassing encounters with the media, but now she is happy to blame her low approval ratings on them, thus showing her lack of loyalty once again.
Finally, Palin has been heavily playing to the GOP's base, thus positioning herself for 2012, rather than trying to appeal to moderates and independents to enhance McCain's chances. To make matters worse, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have also thrown McCain under the bus in favor of Palin, which renders the right wing base less than supportive of McCain with some supporters openly hoping that McCain wins, then passes away so that Palin becomes President.
In short, McCain walked into a very foreseeable mess in choosing Palin, a person he barely knew, who had no so sense of loyalty to John McCain. Can you imagine John McCain bringing this type of decision making into the White House?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/27/palin.tension /
/snip
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.
/snip
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