Palin and the Press

As you probably are already aware, the press (main stream media included) has been fairly critical of Senator McCain's VP pick, Governor Palin. It even seems that the MSM may have finally woken up and decided to stop giving McCain a free ride.

Exhibt A - the now ubiquitous video of Cambell Brown refusing to let Tucker Bounds spew BS.



And now the McCain camp has been moaning about the coverage and 'attacking' of Palin on personal issues, only as Josh Marshall at TPM and Steve Benen at Political Animal recently pointed out it's the McCain campaign that's continualy pushing the personal part of Palin's story and deliberatly keeping her pregnant daughter front and center. C'mon now, if you want her left alone send her home to Alaska to be out of the spotlight with other relatives and friends. If, however, you'd like to keep the bright lights shining on her (and conviently pointed away from the growing revalations about Palin's other abuse of power, lobbying and earmark, and secessionist issues) then by all means fly down her baby's daddy.

Josh Marshall:

Since there is widespread agreement that the children of candidates should not become topics of campaign debate, it behooves us to note that the McCain campaign has almost singlehandedly made Sarah Palin's daughter a central figure in the Republican convention...Let's be clear about what's happening here. Overwhelmingly, reporters are pressing eminently reasonable questions -- her role in troopergate, her lack of experience, her connections to the AIP, her history of earmarking and lobbyists, etc. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is going absolutely non-stop about Palin's daughter. It is unmistakable.

Steve Benen:

To add to Josh's point, there are two other angles to consider here. First, the more the political world obsesses over family drama and soap-opera-like theater, the less voters will hear about the legitimate, substantive critiques on Palin, and the criticism over McCain's comically inept judgment. For the McCain, that's obviously a net plus.

Second, if McCain aides and surrogates can keep talking about Palin's family by complaining about the coverage of Palin's family, the public will eventually collectively shrug its shoulders, and assume that all Palin-related criticism is trivial and should be tuned out.

If that is the Republican game plan (and at this point that's about the best they can even hope for) then they might want to get everyone on board with it. When you have most of the campaign advisors complaining bitterly about the coverage (running with the game plan) then you really shouldn't have the national co-chair of the campaign going on the air and saying that the coverage has been 'completely fair'

Here is Meg Whitman, McCain's national campaign co-chair on, of all places, Fox News:

I'm sure it'll get even more interesting before this is over...