Althouse: If there's a VP leak tonight, is it "political malpractice" and "evidence that the McCain campaign is a war room"?

August 28, 2008

If there's a VP leak tonight, is it "political malpractice" and "evidence that the McCain campaign is a war room"?

The Obama camp says it is.

39 comments:

Unknown said...: whiners.; 8/28/08, 5:08 PM
Anonymous said...: I think link should be leak.

We be smokin'; te huka of blog..

But on a serious note the press staked out Biden's place and wouldn't even give the Secret Service the courtesy of any extra time before they leaked that it was Biden..

So imagine if-somehow McCain's camp does it better?

How is that going to look?; 8/28/08, 5:11 PM
Methadras said...: Mr. Barely is engaged in the generation of minutiae. This is a total non-story and something that the Mr. Barely camp shouldn't be in the practice of engaging in.; 8/28/08, 5:12 PM
Peter Hoh said...: whining is political malpractice.; 8/28/08, 5:13 PM
Revenant said...: I think you mean "leak", not "link".

I seriously doubt McCain will deliberately leak anything. Unless he nominates someone extraordinarily newsworthy (e.g., Lieberman), Obama's coming-out party is still going to be the #1 story; McCain's VP pick will end up getting buried. He would be better off if the VP pick didn't go public until tomorrow. That being said, I'd be very surprised if the information didn't get out anyway. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people are going to know who the pick is, and every last one of them knows reporters willing to promise all sorts of future favors in exchange for a leak.

That's why the Obama campaign is preemptively whining about it. They know it isn't in McCain's interests to leak, and they know a leak will happen anyway. If they can paint themselves as victims despite that, so much the better.; 8/28/08, 5:13 PM
vbspurs said...: One of the commenters on Politico says that he'll do two better -- leak the VP tonight, and announce some cabinet members tomorrow.

I can only imagine he means Pawlenty Veep, and Mitt Romney, Sec'y of the Treasury (as mentioned elsewhere by an Althouse commenter).

It's quite possible that Rudy Giuliani, Atty General, too.

Cheers,
Victoria; 8/28/08, 5:13 PM
P_J said...: It's their party. They can cry if they want to.; 8/28/08, 5:18 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I think link should be leak."

Oops. Fixed.

You wouldn't believe how often I catch myself in blog-related typos. For example, I cannot type the word "block" without first typoing "blog."; 8/28/08, 5:19 PM
rhhardin said...: It would be like programming a football game opposite As the World Turns.; 8/28/08, 5:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Making such a announcement while your opponent is accepting their nomination...

...anybody remember it ever being done before?; 8/28/08, 5:21 PM
Anonymous said...: "It would be like programming a football game opposite As the World Turns."

Yeah, kinda like scheduling one opposite your...oh, my bad.; 8/28/08, 5:22 PM
rhhardin said...: typos: fingers know their own way.

I had the trouble in piano playing, after the 100th repetition of some piece I was learning, that all I was learning was the same miscues, only faster.

The fingers don't get the message.; 8/28/08, 5:22 PM
Sprezzatura said...: Here's the much more interesting bit that I found when I started with your link:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/08/obama-in-never.html; 8/28/08, 5:25 PM
Simon said...: vbspurs said...
"One of the commenters on Politico says that [McCain should] ... announce some cabinet members tomorrow."

He can't do that.; 8/28/08, 5:27 PM
somefeller said...: It's only malpractice if you hurt your client, and unless Obama thinks this action will backfire against McCain, that's an odd choice of words. Another word would have been better, like petty, cheap, or churlish. Well, maybe that last one is a little too British-sounding. Is douchebaggish a real word?; 8/28/08, 5:27 PM
vbspurs said...: Simon, as ever to the rescue.

I did think it was smoke being blown up someone's skirt.

OTOH, that is possibly how the cabinet will look like -- Pawlenty, Romney, Giuliani. Jesus McGillicuddy. What a professional lineup.

SOLID, just like Republicans like it.; 8/28/08, 5:30 PM
Anonymous said...: "It's only malpractice if you hurt your client, and unless Obama thinks this action will backfire against McCain, that's an odd choice of words."

I don't remember reading where Obama said anything.; 8/28/08, 5:36 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: "Tonight would be political malpractice," Obama communications chief Dan Pfeiffer told Politico. "It's one more piece of evidence that the McCain campaign is a war room masquerading as a presidential campaign."

Is this guy serious? Is this Pfeiffer an adult? Is this how they respond to events that they have absolutely no right to control? Hey, kid get a clue- you run your campaign your way and leave the rest to theirs. Is this the day care camp? I do not know which political camp was worse, Hillary’s or Obama’s. They reduced this campaign to childishness.; 8/28/08, 5:43 PM
Anonymous said...: SPOILER ALERT!

Fortunately I was able to get an advanced audio draft of Obama's speech. After editing out the uh's, uh-uh's and uh-um-uh's this is what remained:

"I am the Chosen One. I love me. You love me. We are historic. Kumbaya, my brothers and sisters. I'm really smart and special, and clean, and vastly knowledgeable. And ready, cause Bill said so.

Joe Biden is nice, most of the time. Ha ha. War is evil. Taxes are good. Government is good. Some white people are good - the ones who vote for me especially. Ha ha.

Victims make me sad, and I will fix their awful plights by redefining the universe. I really love me. Michelle and the girls love me. And I love Hillary, and her delegates, and her fembot followers. Really.

Bush is evil. McCain is evil. Big corporations are evil. Blue collar shirts are nice, and beer too. I really really love me. Women love me. Chris Matthews loves me. Europe loves me. We are special. Black is beautiful. I love the media, who are so objective in their wonderful coverage of me. Criticism of the Chosen One is evil. My face hurts from smiling. Who turned off the frigging teleprompter?"

I suspect some slight additional editing will be necessary, but that is the totality of the content. You're welcome I'm sure.; 8/28/08, 5:46 PM
J. Cricket said...: Correction: asshole alert!; 8/28/08, 5:51 PM
Anonymous said...: p rich: How long did it take you to put that together?

You sound like a ten year old.; 8/28/08, 5:52 PM
Jim Howard said...: What is about Democrats? Can they never stop whining and playing the victim?

I don't recall JFK or LBJ engaging in this continual bitching and moaning.

Democrats: The party of crybaby losers.; 8/28/08, 5:58 PM
BJM said...: Pure and simple; the Dems have been outplayed at the game they created.

One can smell the flop sweat wafting from Denver.; 8/28/08, 5:58 PM
blake said...: You know, I didn't follow the link and figured it was the McCain camp concerned about the leak. I just couldn't figure out why, or how it would get reported.

Ohhhhhhh.; 8/28/08, 6:04 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I think that the Obama campaign's biggest problem right now is that the McCain campaign seems to have gotten inside of their decision loop. So, right now they seem to flop around, overreacting one time and underreacting the next, to whatever the McCain campaign does. So, on the biggest night for Obama campaign, before election night, many of its people seem to be panicking over whether McCain is going to disclose his running mate tonight and who it is going to be.

Interestingly to me, this is just the sort of attack that our military has been studying and working on over the last five years or so and what was so effectively deployed against al Qaeda in Iraq over the last year and a half.; 8/28/08, 6:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Jon boy and Lucky

The truth hurts, I see, even in the form of sarcasm. And your puerile rejoinders are devoid of substance as is usually the case with devoted libtards. Listen and learn, Pookies. You won't hear anything of substance tonight outside the early draft. And don't forget that nose wash afterward, always providing of course you can extract them from the crowded crevice. Ta, y'all.; 8/28/08, 6:22 PM
John Stodder said...: Hmm. I think it would be political malpractice on McCain's part to do anything but leak it just before Obama's speech. Politics isn't all beer and skittles. You're supposed to try to step on the other guy's story. This was always a risk, given the Olympics-driven scheduling of the conventions. Obama should've planned around this.

You need to have an awfully worshipful mentality to suggest that Obama is owed a clear field for his utterances. What similar considerations has the Obama camp shown their foes? They must view this speech as tantamount to the State of the Union address. Or the Sermon on the Mount.

The value of such a leak isn't to actually distract from the speech. There's no chance they'll cut away from him. What it would accomplish is to dilute the amount of gushing CNN and MSNBC can do after the speech. If they spent too much time prattling about how historic it was, how eloquent, how significant, moving, chilling, tingling, earth-shaking and unique without going for the real news, the audience would rightly feel like they were watching PR, not news. After Obama's speech is over, it's over. It's not the networks' job to pump up the afterglow by handing out cigarettes to everybody.; 8/28/08, 6:27 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: A whiny and nonsensical complaint. The contrast between a "war room" (bad) and a "presidential campaign" (good) doesn't even make any sense. Suddenly war rooms are bad? They were all the rage back when James Carville was running Clinton's war room.

Bruce Hayden - Nice OODA Loop reference...I think you're right that Obama's campaign is backpedaling a bit right now.; 8/28/08, 6:27 PM
Peter Hoh said...: John Stodder asked: What similar considerations has the Obama camp shown their foes?

When bittergate hit, the Clinton campaign was handing out "I'm not bitter" T-shirts within a day or two. Obama's campaign did nothing of the kind after Hillary got busted for lying about landing under sniper fire. Rove would have been handing out T-shirts designed to look like bulletproof vests.; 8/28/08, 6:30 PM
vbspurs said...: The Crowster is on, and no Althouse convention Day 4 thread YET??; 8/28/08, 6:55 PM
UWS guy said...: Here's the lowdown.

McCain doesn't "need" any kind of Veep, he's a "known known" as Rumsfeld would say as opposed to Obama who required a steady-old-white-man to qualm fears.

but....

McCain's running mate WILL be the defacto nominee in 2012.

Because of this FACT he must pick the already anointed defacto nominee for 2012. That man is:

Mitt Romney.; 8/28/08, 7:22 PM
Anonymous said...: P. Rich,

You need to find room in that speech for throwing someone under the bus, other than that, well done for a first draft.; 8/28/08, 7:33 PM
blake said...: When bittergate hit, the Clinton campaign was handing out "I'm not bitter" T-shirts within a day or two. Obama's campaign did nothing of the kind after Hillary got busted for lying about landing under sniper fire. Rove would have been handing out T-shirts designed to look like bulletproof vests.

Any evidence that they thought of this and demurred?

Wasn't it Snickers who ran commercials in 2000 with a donkey and an elephant where the donkey's claiming to have invented everything and the elephant keeps talking about his dad?

Funny stuff.; 8/28/08, 7:40 PM
UWS guy said...: "Joe Lieberman. We saw what a lethargic, uninspired veep candidate he was in 2000 and he hasn't exactly picked up speed with age. His Joementum has pretty much come to a dead halt. Together on stage, he and McCain would look like a gay Metamucil ad.

lol must read.

James Wolcott

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2008/08/chelsea-clinton-has-gotten-so.html; 8/28/08, 8:08 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: To get an idea of what Maguro is talking about, here is a Wikipedia link to: OODA Loop.; 8/28/08, 8:08 PM
rhhardin said...: I predict a McCain win by 56 states. You heard it here first.

55 of those states will have their voting machines impounded and it will go to the Supreme Court.; 8/28/08, 8:17 PM
Simon said...: It'll be malpractice because it threatens to distract attention from this pathetic excuse for a speech their candiate's offering tonight.; 8/28/08, 9:31 PM
Joe said...: Even if McCain did leak the news tonight, didn't Bill Richardson brag that Obama would restore the Bill of Rights?

Seriously, Obama and company have been saying that Bush trampled the constitution and Obama will restore it. Then he sues to stop commercials and accuses his opponent of abusing his freedom of speech. This is pathetic.; 8/28/08, 11:21 PM
Padre Steve said...: I am hoping the rumor is true! Go McCain/Palin!; 8/29/08, 8:38 AM