…And/or NOT! Yes, that fancy hyped New York Times Magazine piece about the internals of the McCain campaign is now available online, because of YOU, Wonkette readers, who spammed the shit out of Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard inbox yesterday. Good work. Unfortunately, the piece is kind of bleh, with not nearly as much sexy “late Hillary Clinton campaign”-style adviser-on-adviser slap fights. The overall message, which you may have predicted, is that WALNUTS! is not as good of a politician as Barack Obama, ergo the current “losing” situation in which he finds himself deeply embedded. Nevertheless, let’s run through some highlights.
- Steve Schmidt brought with him the Bush campaign’s orthodoxy of message-discipline, according to one adviser: “This is part of the Schmidt gotta-have-absolute-message-discipline thing. That’s one of the disagreements. And John can be really resistant. He’s always worried about being put in a box. He’s got a very sensitive nerve about it. A lot of times I would hear him say: ‘Don’t control me. This is my campaign.’ But I think Steve has convinced him that we’ve got to do this if we’re going to win.” The important thing to note here is that this entire liberal magazine piece is structured around the concept of how Steve Schmidt has chosen 500 different messages about which to be disciplined since he took over the campaign a few months ago. This is called a “fundamental problem.”
- The best scene is from late June when McCain’s top advisers huddled in a secret sodomy chamber at the Phoenix Ritz Carlton to whine about how they were all losing, especially after Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe. And then!!!!:
Eventually, it was Schmidt who blurted out the epiphany concerning Obama. “Face it, gentlemen,” he said. “He’s being treated like a celebrity.”
The others grasped the concept — a celebrity like J-Lo! or Britney! — and exultation overtook the room.
Little starbursts erupted from the room’s collective pants! And then that worked for a little while — that Obama was Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, with less boobs — until…
- …They decided to select an even greater celebrity dumbass as vice president:
The new narrative — the Team of Mavericks coming to lay waste the Beltway power alleys — now depended on a fairly inexperienced Alaska politician. The following night, after McCain’s speech brought the convention to a close, one of the campaign’s senior advisers stayed up late at the Hilton bar savoring the triumphant narrative arc. I asked him a rather basic question: “Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?” The senior adviser thought for a moment. Then he looked up from his beer. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t know.”
The Making (and Remaking) of McCain [NYT Magazine]
{ 42 comments }
Steve should know better. McCain is terrified of Boxes. Particularly those constructed of bamboo.
Hey wait, where did the race riot article go?
The New York Times is in the yurt for Walnuts now that the schvartzer has a chance to win.
[re=143376]CivicHoliday[/re]: John McCain would be a worse street mime than President. He’d probably start a war with the organ grinder monkeys.
Drudge is reporting that the campaign’s new theme song is Nearer My God To Thee.
It’s like a train-wreck in slow motion.
Wow. That piece is even more devastating then saying ‘cunt’ during a speech after spying someone in the crowd giving you juju eyes.
[re=143383]CivicHoliday[/re]: I commented on it and it vanished. Maybe my “watch your back, whitey” remarks were not welcome here at Wonkette.
Though that’s not a bad backyard shot of Mooselini….the Times knows what sells. This will be splooged on by many conservative men whose wives no longer sleep with them. If they buy only one issue, this will be it.
[re=143383]CivicHoliday[/re]: I was thinking the same thing. Come on Ken, don’t get cold feet now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/mccain-makes-classic-freu_n_136866.html
love it.
[re=143387]user-of-owls[/re]: Hilarious joke, but it was probably “Autumn.”
I am gay for Steve Schmidt. McCain would run around screaming, “Don’t control me. This is my campaign,” and Schmidt would somehow convince him that he is wrong. People absolutely loved the crazy McCain who said whatever the fuck he wanted. Schmidt convinced him otherwise, and now we are looking at a record breaking defeat.
[re=143385]John McClain[/re]: Who am I kidding. He’d be a much better street mime than president. And he’d save bundles on the white face paint, what with his deathly pallor and all.
[re=143391]blader[/re]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/mccain-makes-classic-freu_n_136866.html
[re=143411]bitchincamaro[/re]: double-posting commie!
Part of me wants this campaign to go on another month or so, to watch McCain offer to wash the Cadillacs of fundamentalist ministers and offer Pennsylvanians turns on Sarah Palin, and so Hopey can spend all of that money.
“. . . coming to lay waste the Beltway power alleys.” – Is that code for ass-fucking?
Hell, is it even code?
[re=143405]spencer[/re]: Steve Schmidt is a plant from the Obama campaign. Or he’s mind-blowingly incompetent. Your choice.
“The next morning was Thursday, Aug. 28. Salter and Schmidt drove Palin to McCain’s ranch. According to Salter, the senator took the governor down to a place where he usually had his coffee, beside a creek and a sycamore tree, where a rare breed of hawk seasonally nested.”
Who knew walnuts likes to watch birds hump . . .
Somehow I feel the notes from this campaign will be used as a what to do and what not to do example.
[re=143402]tunamelt[/re]: True, but it could also refer to what McCain thinks when he looks at his medical reports.
cool. now police departments everywhere can make use of those million dollar antiterrormobiles that Homeland Security bought everybody but no one ever uses.
at least there weren’t any awful sweaters
[re=143424]tunamelt[/re]: On the day after Palin addressed the GOP convention in a speech that energized the party’s religious conservatives, Schmidt showed up at a Log Cabin Republicans event and matter-of-factly told gay Republicans that they were “important to the fabric of this party” and that his sister and her partner were an important part of his life. “I encourage you to keep fighting for what you believe, because the day is going to come,” he said.
Does it say anything about why the hell McCain hasn’t emailed me the campaign signs I spent all yesterday afternoon submitting to his stupid website?
[re=143441]grendel[/re]: or as toilet paper.
[re=143405]spencer[/re]: its true, we all should send thank-you cards to Steve Schmidt once this is over. “Heckuva job Schmiddy!”
[re=143455]spencer[/re]: Well, that is probably true – but not under (as it were) a Republican administration. Can’t the Log Cabin folks just realize where they are not wanted and come over to the dark side?
OINK.
Moral of the story: He should never have looked up from his beer.
Wow. That “absolute-message-discipline” shit kicked ass, didn’t it? Especially when he went to give John Murtha a tongue lasing and ended up pissing in his own mouth.
[re=143455]spencer[/re]: Good Lord, that’s just evil. I’ll take a crazy true believer like Bible Spice over a shape-shifting powercock-gobbling hypocrite any day.
If they had only sent me my rally sign like they promised… they could have had me! They did send me an email asking for a contribution, though. FAIL.
You can’t polish a turd, Steve Schmidt. Especially when you, yourself, are a turd.
JohnnyMeatworth: I didn’t get my bumper sticker either – and now I am getting their lame ass spam! I guess I should donate, Sarah is running low on lipstick.
And John can be really resistant. He’s always worried about being put in a box. He’s got a very sensitive nerve about it.
Well of course he’s worried about being put in a box. He was in a box for FIVE AND A HALF YEARS.
Funny, I looked up from my beer and laughed quietly to myself. Heh heh heh. Like that.
[re=143455]spencer[/re]: Commandant Amon Göth said something similar to the inmates at the Płaszów Labor Camp.
Schmidt: Damn darkie celebrity!
Davis: Hey, I know, let’s get a celebrity of our own!
Everyone: Yeah!!…
Schmidt: …damn smart darkie!
Davis: Hey, I know, let’s get a smar… oh, damn, that’s right.
Everyone: Fuck.
[re=143439]longjohnson[/re]: Man, with overwritten deathly prose like that, I imagine the NYT Magazine piece will be read halfway through. Hawk breeding? Coffee? Trees? Palin? Who cares…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Sigh….
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