"Palling Around With Terrorists" Incident Shows Cracks In McCain-Palin Campaign

One of the overarching themes of Going Rogue is the idea that the McCain team controlled, thwarted, smothered, and sacrificed Sarah Palin with every opportunity.  A cursory glance at the text shows that Palin felt her opinion and ideas were not valued and that the McCain headquarters simply issued missives to Palin and expected compliance.

Additionally, those who watched the progress of the 2008 presidential campaigns closely will notice Palin's version of events sometimes is in direct contradiction to the versions originating from outside observers and the McCain team. 

For example, Palin describes her "palling around with terrorists" comment as having been a headquarters "approved sound bite about Obama."  And when criticisms flew afterward, she took the fall while at headquarters "the folks there did little more than duck." [Palin, Going Rouge, p. 306-7]

However, a November 2008 article appearing in Newsweek told a different version of the Ayers story.  Newsweek reported that among campaign staff "[t]here was grumbling that Palin had jumped the gun by bringing up Ayers at her rallies before the campaign could properly do the groundwork with a rollout strategy and ads. (At one rally, she had talked about Obama 'palling around with terrorists.')...One adviser later speculated that she impulsively talked about Ayers because she felt thwarted - she had really wanted to bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Actually, Palin was feeling hurt and angry over the tabloid treatment of her 17-year-old daughter Bristol, and decided - on her own - that Ayers should be fair game.  McCain's advisers were working on a strategy that would launch an Ayers attack the following week...)"

There are three possibilities here:

• Sarah Palin is right.  The "palling around with terrorists" comment came directly from McCain headquarters and she willingly incorporated it into her speech.  The McCain team, already using the Palin "going rogue" image, then easily denounced the sound bite when the backlash got rough and let Palin take the heat.

• The McCain/Newsweek version is right.  Palin was angry about being tethered and decided on her own to hit back at Obama because of the media's treatment of her daughter.  The McCain campaign retaliated by calling Palin out-of-control because she destroyed their attack strategy.

• They're both wrong.  Palin knew about the Ayers connection and was aware of a coming attack on Obama over the connection, but the McCain team hadn't fully developed their strategy.  Palin had access to the prepared talking points, but not the go ahead to use them.  Frustrated with being controlled and angry at the way her daughter was being tossed about in the media, Palin ran with the sound bite - expecting the McCain team to catch up.  The negative reaction to the comment led to each side trying to throw the other under the bus.

This incident, compiled with dozens of others in the book and compared to other versions of the same events, shows a serious problem in the McCain campaign.  The lack of cooperation and communication - on both sides - is astonishing.