Hmm...an "Eagleton" theory.

[dkf]

I have a theory
Submitted by rwallnerny on Fri, 08/29/2008 - 11:55pm.

I have a theory that McCain might be engaging in some gamesmanship. The point of doing a vp announcement today was to take the headlines away from Obama. McCain could only do this with a big surprise pick. If he announced Romney it would have been announced with a big yawn by the press.

So instead he announces Sarah Palin. Headlines everyywhere. Nobody's talking about Barack's speech now. But what if that was the point? What if next Tuesday or Wednesday, after Palin gets beat up by the press a bit (which they will, the press *hates* candidates being put up for national office which they haven't brutally vetted first), she comes out to the podium and tearfully "announces" that she is declining the nomination for vp to spend more time with her five month old baby. McCain accepts her resignation the ticket, says he was proud to have picked a woman, and then picks Romney as her replacement.

McCain thus gets the headlines he wants for a few days, gets credit for picking a woman, AND ends up with Romney anyway. It could all be a plan, a deception. Sarah Palin then gets to go back to Alaska with a substantially raised national profile, and Romney gets many more people at the convention accepting him as vp because they are so glad it didn't end up being her. It works all the way around.

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/partial_list_of_republican_women_more_qualified_to_be_president_than_sarah_palin.html

[Lost-in-FL]

1. No, really... the GOP is really that stupid. nt

[Richardo]

2. Nah.

It still reflects on McCain's piss-poor judgement and pandering for picking her in the first place. If she pulls an Eagleton, McCain goes the way of McGovern.

[DarthDem]

3. Possible, But . . .

This entire pick is aimed at the, shall we say, "low-information" voter. If he picks someone, and then a week or less later, replaces her, that's not going to play well. It's just going to be downright embarrassing.

I admit, it's possible. But I think we're giving McInsane's "strategists" a bit too much credit.

[WeDidIt]

5. No, there is no possibility of that whatsoever

There is no way they actually would PLAN a "Thomas Eagleton".

None

IT could happen, but nobody is stupid enough to actually plan one.

[WeDidIt]

4. That would PROVE McCain picking her was STUPID

and DESTROY any chance whatsoever of him winning.

He's stuck with her unless he doesn't want any chance at all of winning.

[dkf]

6. But then he blames it on the "emotional" woman.

[WeDidIt]

8. HE CHOSE the woman

That is a direct reflection on HIS PERSONAL JUDGEMENT.

Planning to pull an Eagleton would be an even stupider move than picking Palin in the first place.

The only way she's off the ticket is in the microscopic chance that the baby bullshit rumors have some shred of truth to them.

[dkf]

9. Or if she is impeached.

[WeDidIt]

10. Impeachment wouldn't come before the election

The determination of the investigation comes on October 29.

IF team McCain has grilled her and found out she DID fire the guy because he wouldn't fire her brother-in-law, then they have no choice but to pull an Eagleton and take her off the ballot ASAP. In the case of that, iot still demosntrates poor jedgement and completely devestates the campaign, but the hit is not as bad as if a bipartisan investigative body finds she abused her power just six days before the election.

[dkf]

11. If they do some real vetting, and she confesses, then

she will go through the whole "I need to take care of my baby" thing. Which comes back to the post that I quoted.

[WeDidIt]

12. No, it doesn't come back to the post you quoted

The post you quoted was trying to claim this was some part of a devious plan. As demonstrated, only the biggest fucking idiot in politics would actually plan on pulling a Thomas Eagleton.

One does not purposefully do something that one knows will give the image of idiotic judgement during a presidential election. It simply isn't done. IF she pulls out it's because of a skeleton in her closet that was never vetted, and that demonstrates poor judgement.

It's a hit a campaign cannot come back from.

Nobody in their right mind will EVER purposefully PLAN a Thomas Eagleton.

NOBODY!

[dkf]

13. Well I'm not sure what I find more stupid...planning to nominate then pull her or

just plain nominating her.

Both show the same poor judgment.

[WeDidIt]

15. Pulling her off shows worse judgement

Sorry, but that's the gosh honest truth.

[dkf]

18. Well then, we will just see what happens.

[book_worm]

20. doesn't matter. In '72 nobody blamed Eagleton for not being candid with McGovern, they blamed McGov

for not fully vetting him.

[cliffordu]

7. I think McCain threw a fit over what his handlers were telling him to do and called

her out of spite. After all, he's another decider, now. Ain't he??

[americanstranger]

14. This is a lose-lose for McCain. I seriously doubt this was planned.

Think about it.

If he actually did what the OP speculates and staged a fake VP announcement to knock Obama off the front page, then he's way more stupid than W and his campaign is the most inept campaign in American election history, period.

Now they're faced with two choices, either one of which make them look really, really bad.

1. They stage Palin's 'I'm going home to take care of my baby' press conference. At this point in the game, so much dirt has been uncovered on Palin that even the McCain cheerleaders in the media will be thinking that the campaign cut her loose and speculating that the GOP bigwigs have put a leash on the Maverick. OR

2. They decide to tough it out, as more and more dirt is uncovered on Palin and people start to get hip to what a total whack job she really is. Her poll numbers plummet and she spends her time on the campaign trail defending herself against Troopergate or her husband getting a guy fired who dated his best friend's ex or her firing the police chief of that backwater town she was mayor of.

Either way, McCain will look bad. His campaign will look clumsy and incompetent. The GOP will be in further disarray than they are today.

If they did try to plan this, I'm surprised there was not a single person working for the campaign trying to point out what a monumentally stupid idea it was. But I doubt they planned it.

Not even Republicans could be that dumb.

- as

[tinrobot]

16. Drama creates coverage

I'm sure if that happened, he'd dominate the news cycle for another week or two.

But I'm not sure if that sort of press would be good for him.

[southerncrone]

17. Quite frankly, I suspect ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

with the Repubs.

I would not be one bit surprised at any crazy, sneaky, under-handed maneuver on their part.

After all, it's just the way they are.

[book_worm]

19. That would gurantee a McCain loss if that happened, so it won't.

[eshfemme]

21. No, this was not planned. I might have thought this was planned if not for the following:

1) McCain LOOOOOOOOVES dicing. His aides in their quest to babysit him have basically forbidden him to go gambling at the craps table whenever he's in a casino city like Reno or Las Vegas.

2) When they introduced Palin, it was obvious that it was a last minute change because of the bawling that Romney and Pawlenty immediately did. Also, Kay Bailey Hutchinson had to go on air to defend Palin and then was forced to admit that she had never fucking met Palin and didn't know her. No planned operation would let this happen.

3) McCain obviously didn't do his homework because after the netroots (and even the MSM--surprise of the day!) did their thing and dug up Troopergate (or Wootengate), there were stories of McCain aides flying up to AL to investigate it. In a proper vetting (from all reports, Obama's team was fucking VIGOROUS in doing their homework), this should have come up because anyone with Google immediately came up with it.

4) There was no groundwork set up for this. Even if they wanted to pull off an "Eagleton" they would need to make their pick competent. So all the video of her fucking asking what a VP does would not be out there. There wouldn't be video of her essentially agreeing with Obama's campaigns of change (she was visibly enthused about it) or her now infamous self-description of being "just a hockey mom"

5) It's obvious that McCain was testing the media and his base's waters by floating the various VP rumors. His pro-choice and most comfortable choices were harshly rejected and the people preparing themselves for the VP spot like Pawlenty, Romney or Huckabee were okay but apparently too traditional. It's obvious that they wouldn't add to his own imagined maverick-iness.

So, I think that the GOP basically made their bed by picking John Sidney McCain III as their party leader. They fucked themselves over by picking Bush and then McCain and now they'll have to deal with it. As Obama says, they have to "own their failures."