True Confessions From the Trail

[steven johnson]

Steve Schmidt, McCain campaign's top advisor and David Plouffe, one of Obama's triumverate, are both University of Delaware grads. They discussed the last campaign with some candor this past week. It's not exactly the "hugs-and-kisses, let's all get together and sing kum-bai-yah" message from the administration.

"When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall, I knew pretty much straight away the campaign was finished," Schmidt confessed to an auditorium full of college students. When the number of people who thought the country was on the right track "dropped to 5 percent and the economy collapsed, I knew that was not going to be survivable for us."

On McCain's acceptance of inevitable defeat: "I was waiting for his bus to crash into a CDC truck carrying bubonic plague to release over Cincinnati and Ohio. It was just one thing after another, you know, and never to our benefit."

Plouffe, though much more guarded than his former foe, took a quaff of the truth serum, too. All that talk from President Obama about working with the Republicans? Stuff and nonsense! "I think the scoreboard of how many House Republicans voted for a certain bill is a flawed measure, because the truth is there's very few House Republicans that worry about the middle of the electorate anymore," the president's former campaign manager said.

"We've won all there is to win in the House, so these folks are worried about their primaries, and Newt Gingrich is calling all their shots and pulling out the dusty playbook from 1994 and saying, 'Just oppose the president, and maybe if things don't go well you'll profit.' "


True Confessions From the Trail

[geckosfeet]

1. Grrrreat article. Another quote and my own highly prized observations.

Schmidt expanded on his earlier support for same-sex civil unions ("I believe people are born with their sexuality"), joked about the GOP leadership vacuum ("this 'Lord of the Flies' period"), mocked the party's presidential strategy ("Hold the South and we'll spend $80 million trying to flip Ohio") and celebrated Obama's "once-in-a-generation" political skills ("This was, in my view, the unfinished Bobby Kennedy campaign").

Continue organizing for 2010 and 2012 as if it was tomorrow. Let the rabid 'Lord of the Flies' republics take center stage and let the world watch. Meanwhile, organize.

If the best they have is Gingrich and recycled KKKarl rove then we know what to expect. Reactionary backstabbing power-grabbing BS that is designed for control, not leadership and governing a country.