Further thoughts on the coming bloodbath in the GOP.
Earlier today, I put up a post about the apparent tug-of-war going on between Sarah Palin and her neocon acolytes and the Bush minions who ended up running McCain's campaign. In that post, I listed 5 points illustrating the problems Palin was going to have in positioning herself as a presidential candidate in 2012. The third point was this:
3. Palin seems not to be taking into consideration the immediate ramifications of defying the campaign, and the now-evident vindictive streak of McCain and those loyal to him. If McCain suffers a substantial loss on November 4, someone will be the scapegoat - and while Palin would be spared if she played the game and supported the top of the ticket, she has no guarantee that she won't become the fall guy if McCain is humiliated at the polls and she's seen as being disloyal in the final stages of the race.
After thinking about it, I'd like to elaborate on this point.
At this stage of what appears to be a lost campaign, Palin may be thinking that if she distances herself from John McCain her chances for 2012 will be a lot better. Now, anyone who has watched Palin in the VP wannabe role knows by now that there is a meanness about her - just below the perky, flirty surface is a cut-throat, virulent strain of ambition that causes her to be a tad bit nasty to her opponents. She simply cannot help it, it is who she is.
And in the environment of bitter recrimination that is bound to follow a McCain - Palin loss, she's likely to say some pretty nasty things about her former running mate and those who ran their campaign.
Well, Sarah better bite her tongue and play nice, and here's why.
In the wake of her being chosen for the VP slot, McCain's campaign sent a small army of lawyers to Alaska, presumably to keep the lid on the burgeoning Troopergate scandal. They were privy to a lot of documents, a lot of inside information, probably the whole story.
If Palin chooses to go nuclear the day after Election Day, who's to say that McCain wouldn't stage a counter-strike and use all that information against her? They know everything. They saw all the documents that they were keeping out of the media's hands. They interviewed all the witnesses, and because of those interviews they kept those witnesses away from the media.
See where I'm going here? They know where the bodies are buried.
That's the deal you make when you sign on with an organization like McCain's campaign. Under the guise of 'protecting' Palin, they got access to, and probably still have records of, all the slime.
Does anyone think for a moment that a vindictive old bastard like McCain and a hard-boiled political operative like Steve Schmidt wouldn't pull the pin on that grenade if things escalate and Palin says the wrong thing?
As much as I look forward to the results of November 4th, I can't wait to see what happens on November 5th. Given the temperaments of the parties involved, it's not out of the question to suggest that there may be no one left standing in the Republican party by November 6th.