If Sarah Palin Hates Smart People, What Does That Say About Her Campaign?

Sarah Palin's only been doing this Vice Presidential thingie for, like, 5 weeks or so, which means it's about time for the inevitable Who She Is And How She Got Here stories to hit the magazines. See, John McCain, this is why people generally: a) actually vet their VP picks and b) announce them sooner. Then, the kind of stuff that's in the new issues of The New Republic and Newsweek doesn't come out at all, or if it does, it doesn't come out with less than a month to go in the elections. Of course, most people don't let an aide pick their Vice President, either.

While it has been previously reported in the NY Times that John McCain really, really, really, really wanted Joe Lieberman to be his running mate and had to be talked out of it because conservatives were grumbling, it's now clear that Steve Schmidt not only did the talking down but also pushed the selection of Sarah Palin, according to the LA Times. Who would've thought that a woman with less than 2 years as a governor, 8 as a mayor and less than a year in a political patronage position could have so much baggage? From a pregnant underage daughter to firing scandals reminiscent of the ones the GOP tried to tar the Clintons with not too long ago (Travelgate, anyone) to rape kits, few people would disagree that the campaign couldn't used just a little bit more time and expended a lot more effort on the vetting process.

But, then, we wouldn't have so much fun reading The New Republic and learning how Sarah Palin is reflexively opposed to people with fancy educations or complex world views. Or looking at Newsweek for information about how she has no interest in focusing on the details of policy issues, preferring pre-made talking points to actually understanding an issue (a preference that was fully on display in the debate last week).

And we certainly wouldn't get quotes from Republicans about how insanely unqualified she was. If they had not tried to play chicken with Obama and the Olympics on selecting a VP, by now, enough McCain surrogates would've been able to get on television and talk about the sour grapes of the also-rans and how Sarah Palin is just representing the classist worldviews of Joe Sixpacks who resent anyone and everyone who is smarter, more privileged or better-educated than them (but not wealthy, because otherwise they wouldn't want to vote for the guy with 7 houses and 12 cars and shit) and Nancy PfotenhauerPfuckingsucks would be giggling in her arch little way and everyone would have stopped paying attention. Sorry, Steve Schmidt. Sometimes, if Sarah Palin still likes you, it might mean you're not that smart.

Barracuda [The New Republic]
The Palin Problem [Newsweek]
Steve Schmidt: The Driving Force Behind John McCain [LA Times]
Palin Disclosures Raise Questions on Vetting [NY Times]

Send an email to Megan Carpentier, the author of this post, at askalobbyist@gmail.com.

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