The Morning After the Party’s Over
Washington DC — Senator John McCain can’t live without Sarah Palin but he can’t live with her either, at least not much longer.
McCain is much like Professor Rath in “The Blue Angel.” He’s infatuated with someone much younger and he has joined the carnival just to be near her. The Palin act travels from one town to the next attracting crowds of Bush-Cheney dead enders. She steps forward, with the confidence of a high school cheerleader while the full professor of perverse politics looks on with admiration and affection.
At the start of his campaign, he was unable to draw a crowd or deliver a speech that just about anyone found the least bit engaging. In early side by side coverage of a same day event, CNN showed Obama hitting one out of the park and McCain struggling to engage 200 onlookers.
The net effect of the Palin addition is in dispute. If you’re part of the Republican media shill brigade, it’s been terrific, a brilliant choice. Looking at it objectively, there’s been little impact on the ticket, unless you buy into the Gallup Poll that showed what looked like a McCain convention bounce. To “stand up” the bounce, Gallup simply added more Republicans to their sample, driving up McCain’s numbers. But if you’re candidate John McCain, you’re locked and loaded, exhilarated, and infused vicariously by your vision of Palin’s draw.
McCain was a man of special privilege. Despite his mild admonition for participating in the last financial meltdown due to his acceptance of gifts from savings and loan failure Charles Keating, McCain has been a press darling. He’s provided good box office for sound bites on a variety of issues. For a short time, he went against the grain of right wing madness. In his Norfolk, Virginia speech announcing his 2000 candidacy for president, he took on the worst elements of U.S. politics.
McCain also pulled off one of the great pieces of modern street theater, also in the 2000 primaries. He stood before the Russian embassy and castigated the New York Republican Party for taking his name off the primary ballot on a technicality. He was quickly restored to the ballot.
But time and the nonstop coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign began to wear on his patience. The press had actually criticized him, very lightly and not too often. He was not pleased.
Then he got Palin. Despite the array of initial criticism and the ongoing attacks on her character and political deviance, she’s shown that she can draw a crowd. McCain was infatuated. He followed her just about everywhere and continues to do so.
To a crowd of 7,000 people in Lancaster, PA, McCain said, “”With the help of this running mate, this stalwart and great American, we will always put our country first” Sept. 9, 2008.
The reality is another story. For the first time in nearly eight years, a cross section of the corporate media has opened up on the right wing establishment. The Post, a long time stenography pool for the Bush administration, ran a serious front page story on embarrassing family details. The New York Times editorialized along with the St. Petersburg Times. Now ABC’s Brian Ross and his Blotter investigative team are on the case.
You might remember Ross from “Foleygate”, the scandal that broke in late August 2006 and tarnished congressional Republicans right up until the 2006 mid term election. Ross broke the story. In less than one month, .he and his team produced over 20 stories on Foley and his relationship with congressional pages. Now he and his “Blotter” team are focused on Palin. On Sept. 11, 2008, we got Palin Backstab? Commissioner Praised Then Fired followed up with ‘Troopergate’ Inquiry Reaches Palin Husband on Sept. 12. Ross is approaching the pace of the Foley story.
In addition to corporate media news groups, the National Enquirer has a team on the ground in Alaska.
Palin’s Dominance Dooms McCain
What options does candidate McCain have right now?
He can strike out on his own for rallies and events. This is obviously necessary but represents a major gamble. His crowds will soon be compared to hers and we know how that will come out.
He can continue to follow Palin and bask in the glow of her crowd pleasing act. But to what end? The large media outlets will begin to comment on his dependant role as political house husband. He’ll be seen as clinging to Palin’s apron strings, afraid to leave the nest, etc.
The third option consists of riding out the numerous scandals that are Palin. Vindictive firings; charging the state travel for 300 days spend at her home; tens of thousands of airfares and other travel for her family; book banning; flitrations with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party; etc. There are so many developing scandals to choose from, including some that aren’t even hinted at currently.
Then there’s the Defenders of Wildlife devastating television ad on hunting wolves from airplanes and their micro documentary Aerial hunting in Alaska. These are tearing up the airwaves at YouTube with original posts and mirrors totaling over a million views by now. There are derivative videos that are equally devastating.
McCain took a “bridge to nowhere” thinking it was the path to his salvation. Given his total abandonment of any degree of consistency and civility in this campaign, it’s hard to have much sympathy. Palin was a bad move no matter how hard the Orwellian faction spins it.
Now Palin has McCain trapped. Very soon, he won’t be able to live with her. But without her, his decent into triple digit crowds and positions that represent a shrinking minority of the electorate will only cause the public to recall his infatuation with a woman who encouraged the slaughter of wolves and payment for their subsequent dismemberment.