Palin’s detractors in McCain campaign were warned of retribution
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
In a piece in Politico today, Jonathan Martin credits a Vanity Fair article on Sarah Palin as the impetus behind the sudden infighting between conservative William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and John McCain’s former campaign manager Steve Schmidt.
But while the Vanity Fair article might have served as Kristol’s excuse to call out Schmidt, it is a battle that has been long in the making.
Earlier this year, Weekly Standard blogger and former-McCain campaign blogger, Michael Goldfarb warned that those inside the campaign who had spoken ill of Palin were known — and that they would pay a “steep price” for their actions:
Kate Klonick: What about all the talk about the acrimony between the McCain/Palin camps behind the scenes? What was the story with that?
Michael Goldfarb: The reporters who produced those quotes
weren’t making them up. It was a disgrace to the campaign and John McCain, and I think the people who did that are going to pay a real steep price in the long run, because the media ate it up, the media loved it. Once you’ve lost the campaign, who holds responsibility for [publicly airing their grievances with Palin] and who escapes with their credibility intact won’t be decided by The New York Times. Conservatives are not pleased by this.
And it looks like those conservatives decided now was the time for payback.
On Tuesday, Kristol accused Schmidt of “trashing Sarah Palin’s mental state” and being behind the leaks that had debased Palin in the midst of the campaign, a charge Schmidt flatly denied. Kristol’s accusation was seconded by Randy Scheunemann, a McCain campaign foreign advisor.
Besides Schmidt, Scheunemann also fingered Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain advisor who had worked closely with Palin, as well as Wallace’s husband, Mark.
Schmidt and (to a lesser-extent) Wallace both make their living as Republican heavy-weights. If Kristol and Scheunemann succeed in tying them to the hit pieces and potshots against Palin, they will pay a very steep price indeed.
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[...] Klonick makes the smart point that the nasty Kristol v. Schmidt spat over the Vanity Fair Sarah Palin piece is really about [...]
Republicans acting like Democrats and beating each other up. Keep it up.
Bill Kristol as the Madame Defarge of the GOP, makes sense to me!
What exactly is a steep price? Steve Schmidt will be blackballed? No republican will hire him? Unlikely. I think this confederacy of dunces,Palin, Kristol and Scheunemann think very highly of themselves considering how their family value, small government, laissez faire, neo-con base of voters has shrunk to maybe 15% of republicans and by the time 2012 rolls around a portion of those will have met their maker. Kristol and his ilk should certainly know about steep prices because with their help the entire Republican Party paid it and when you are at the bottom nothing is steep anymore.
Ha. That’s a pretty good point. But I think means trumps ends here — the point is that Kristol et al are out for pay-back, not just a little squabble over he said, she said about Palin. I think it exposes the ruthlessness of the Republican party.
In response to another comment. See in context »This is going to happen. A team lost, and now fingers are getting pointed. When I read this sentence, I started laughing to hard. “Besides Schmidt, Scheunemann also fingered Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain advisor who had worked closely with Palin, as well as Wallace’s husband, Mark.” Sex, lies, and politics.