Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for October 26, 2008 FROM A JACK TO A KING

From a maverick to a "rogue"?

Sarah...the DIVA???

Ouch!

Have to admit, the story below bothered me a little...all the "unnamed sources/aides". If Colin Powell (damaged in his own right), wants to "man-up" and take shots at the Republicans in general and Sarah the Candidate, well let's just say that he's "paid his dues" and I will put some credence in what he says.

But...all these "behind the scenes", wanna-be-in-control aides (who were probably hired from the old Bush campaign team...the ones who slimed John McCain)...not so much.

I almost felt sorry for Sarah the Former Walmart Shopper...

ALMOST!

I was shaken out of my moment of misplaced sympathy when I ran across a second article...harping on the Katie Couric interview...a freaking month later! I mean...give it up Sarah the Obsessed!!! Continuing to remind the "undecided voters" of your abject failures at unrehearsed, off-the-cuff questions (the kind that might just come up for the occupant of the White House)...well, it might just sway those remaining 100 or so people to vote for your unAmerican opponents.

After reading the second article, it is clear that if Sarah the Vindictive One is victorious and assumes control of the United States Senate, she will most likely add "Katiegate" to her "Troopergate" resume!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Speaking of "obsessed"! My apologies to my fellow Americans (yes, I DO consider you Americans)...those who carry the Republican banner...even AFTER the Palin selection. I normally try to keep political and religious discussion out of CAT Tracks, but I have repeatedly violated that self-imposed rule during the past month or so. Just can't help myself!!! However, I hereby promise that this is the last political posting prior to November the 4th.

DO GET OUT AND VOTE...especially if you live in one of the "purple states"!

POSTSCRIPT: The above "pledge" of no more political stories was made on the "assumption" that Sarah does not do anything outrageous to grab further headlines. In short, it was one of those hollow campaign promises...

Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says

From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King
CNN

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

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. Watch why the campaign is fighting »

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

A Palin associate defended her, saying that she is "not good at process questions" and that her comments on Michigan and the robocalls were answers to process questions.

But this Palin source acknowledged that Palin is trying to take more control of her message, pointing to last week's impromptu news conference on a Colorado tarmac.

Tracey Schmitt, Palin's press secretary, was urgently called over after Palin wandered over to the press and started talking. Schmitt tried several times to end the unscheduled session.

"We acknowledge that perhaps she should have been out there doing more," a different Palin adviser recently said, arguing that "it's not fair to judge her off one or two sound bites" from the network interviews.

The Politico reported Saturday on Palin's frustration, specifically with McCain advisers Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt. They helped decide to limit Palin's initial press contact to high-profile interviews with Charlie Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, which all McCain sources admit were highly damaging.

In response, Wallace e-mailed CNN the same quote she gave the Politico: "If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most honorable thing to do is to lie there."

But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.

They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.

"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."

Schmitt came to the back of the plane Saturday to deliver a statement to traveling reporters: "Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want, but from Gov. Palin down, we have one agenda, and that's to win on Election Day."

Yet another senior McCain adviser lamented the public recriminations.

"This is what happens with a campaign that's behind; it brings out the worst in people, finger-pointing and scapegoating," this senior adviser said.

This adviser also decried the double standard, noting that Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, has gone off the reservation as well, most recently by telling donors at a fundraiser that America's enemies will try to "test" Obama.

Tensions like those within the McCain-Palin campaign are not unusual; vice presidential candidates also have a history of butting heads with the top of the ticket.

John Edwards and his inner circle repeatedly questioned Sen. John Kerry's strategy in 2004, and Kerry loyalists repeatedly aired in public their view that Edwards would not play the traditional attack dog role with relish because he wanted to protect his future political interests.

Even in a winning campaign like Bill Clinton's, some of Al Gore's aides in 1992 and again in 1996 questioned how Gore was being scheduled for campaign events.

Jack Kemp's aides distrusted the Bob Dole camp and vice versa, and Dan Quayle loyalists had a list of gripes remarkably similar to those now being aired by Gov. Palin's aides.

With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting that McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be looking after her own future.

"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature. She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally."

Palin "annoyed" with CBS interviewer

From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

FORT WAYNE, Indiana (CNN) – Campaigning Saturday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a city once represented in Congress by another vice presidential candidate named Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin delivered one of her longest stump speeches to date and revealed that she was “annoyed” with the line of questioning presented by Katie Couric in her now-infamous interview with CBS.

Palin reprised a story she last told a week ago in Noblesville, Indiana about her sit-down with Couric, which was widely panned.

“Last time I was here I got to tell a crowd that I had to give a national interview that didn’t go so well,” she said. “And it was because I was kind of annoyed with the questions that I was being asked because I thought they were kind of irrelevant to, you know, national security issues and getting our economy back on track, so I kind of showed some of that annoyance.”

Couric did, in fact, ask Palin several questions about the economy and national security, focusing in particular on the congressional bailout package, the mortgage crisis, John McCain’s record on regulation, the war in Afghanistan, hunting terrorists in Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Syria, Israel and the role of the United States in the world.

Palin joked, however, about another line of questioning.

“But I think the one question that I answered that everyone could agree on, it maybe shows where my heart is… too is, she asked me this relevant question: What was my favorite movie? And I said ‘Hoosiers!’”

The governor continued to press the campaign’s message of the day: that Barack Obama and congressional Democrats will, if elected, expand government and redistribute the hard-earned dollars of regular Americans, criticisms that brought on accusatory shouts of “socialist!,” “Communist!” and, at one point, “Hussein the socialist!”

Palin said that on election day, “what we're going to have to do together, voters, what we have to do is fight for what is right and free and uniquely American. Let us put our trust in each other, not big government.”

The Indiana crowd — easily Palin’s largest of the day — was warmed up by country legend Hank Williams, Jr., who often appears at Palin campaign events to perform his recently-penned ode to the GOP ticket: “McCain-Palin tradition.”

But Williams may have been channeling the enthusiasm of the crowds for Palin — and also reflecting recent reports that Palin is “going rogue” with an eye toward the 2012 presidential race. At one point during his performance, he intentionally scrambled the song’s lyrics and put the Alaskan at the top of the ticket, praising a “Palin-McCain tradition.”

That musical witticism earned Williams a loud cheer from the crowd.