A follow-up to our previous posting. Earlier today, this news story was on the wires…
(PHILADELPHIA) Sarah Palin told a customer at a Philadelphia restaurant on Saturday that the United States should "absolutely" launch cross-border attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan in the event that it becomes necessary to "stop the terrorists from coming any further in," a comment similar to the one John McCain condemned Barack Obama for making during last night's presidential debate.
Now, we have this one…
WASHINGTON (CNN) Sen. John McCain retracted Sarah Palin's stance on Pakistan Sunday morning, after the Alaska governor appeared to back Sen. Barack Obama's support for unilateral strikes inside Pakistan against terrorists.
"She would not…she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos of Palin. "In all due respect, people going around and…sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's — that's a person's position…This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitive policy statement made by Governor Palin."
That's just embarrassing. McCain has spent the last three decades in an arena where everything a candidate says is fair game, including casual remarks. His reps and advertising folks pounce on every little thing Obama and Biden say and it's understood they will. What's the most charitable interpretation here? That Palin didn't know what she was talking about? That sure speaks well of putting her a heartbeat away from you-know-what. I'm surprised he didn't retract her order of the Cheese Whiz while he was at it.
Folks keep e-mailing me predictions that Palin will "resign from" (i.e., get kicked off) the ticket any day now. I've never believed that because it seemed to me that no matter how things were phrased, the rest of the campaign would have been about McCain having lousy judgment on his most important campaign decision. This would be on top of him having lousy judgment in the Iraq War. But if he has to go around "retracting" everything his running mate says, then the rest of the campaign will be about his lousy judgment in picking her, anyway. Given that McCain loves to gamble — in life and, if this morn's New York Times is to be believed, in casinos — maybe he'll try it.
So, let's see…how would this work? The post-debate polls come out Monday. Obama is 5-6 points ahead in most of the pre-debate polls. Let's say he's 8-9 up in the new ones. Palin calls a carefully-scripted press conference (no questions) Monday afternoon to announce that she has family matters to deal with, an unfair "witch hunt" of an ethics investigation, etc. No one has asked her to quit but she's bowing out for the good of the cause and God Bless John McCain. McCain "reluctantly" accepts her resignation, says he's asked the Republican National Committee to quickly convene whatever kind of quickie gathering is necessary to nominate someone new. Thursday's debate, of course, is off. Sarah Palin totally vanishes for a while, only to reappear after her term of office is up as the Oprah of Fox News.
A day or two after she quits, McCain names someone new…someone who's been a lot more carefully vetted. That would probably mean someone roadtested in past presidential races, which lets out all women. It would have to be someone sufficiently right-wing that McCain wouldn't lose all the rabid Conservatives who loved gun-totin', anti-abortion Palin. It would also have to be someone with strong Wall Street cred since that's the issue where McCain is really getting hammered. Sounds to me like Mitt Romney…but of course, that's if McCain is being logical, which has not been a sound bet lately. Or maybe he'll feel it has to be another woman, lest he lose too much of the female vote. Or maybe it'll be a real Hail Mary pass and he'll go with Larry the Cable Guy or…
Naw. It's all too much of a gamble, even for McCain. He'll stick with Palin. Unless he doesn't.