Pollster with McCain connections: McCain picked Lieberman for VP, Rove told Camp to go with Palin

[sabra]

http://www.yourwestvalley.com/news/merrill_3964___article.html/mccain_obama.html

<snip>

Merrill, who teaches courses in public opinion, political communication and quantitative research methodology, was a consultant for McCain in 1982.

...

Merrill said he fields calls from 20-30 journalists across the country every week, all of them asking for his opinion on some part of the race. After he answers their questions, he said, he always insists on asking them a few. And what he's heard, Merrill said, has been interesting.

"McCain had already chosen Joe Lieberman as his running mate," Merrill said. "Karl Rove convinced McCain's people to change his mind and get him to go with Sarah Palin instead."

Merrill said his journalist contacts told him Rove was able to convince the McCain camp that picking Lieberman would be the nail in his campaign's coffin.

"Rove told them that no presidential candidate in recent memory has won an election without energizing their party's base, and Lieberman would not do that," Merrill said. "If you want to win by going after independents and conservative Democrats, Lieberman is a good pick. But if you want to energize the base, Sarah Palin is a brilliant move."

[hisownpetard]

1. Let's just hope that this comes back to bite him.

[patrice]

2. We've always known who runs the Republican Party.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Genius. replaces one nail with another (or, a nail with a "nail-in"!) NT

[mzmolly]

4. So we can take out Rove and McCain in one election?

:bounce: I like!

[Cha]

5. Good ..it can all be blamed on rove

when mcpalin go down the tubes ..left swimming with the poor toxic inbred fishes.

[SurfingAtWork]

6. Never thought I'd say this, but thanks Karl.

[ErinBerin84]

7. yes, confirming what we already knew.

Plus, sources for Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty claim to have been VERY mislead about the VP pick, with Tim Pawlenty's camp left in the dark about him not being VP until the morning of the Palin announcement.

[blm]

8. Rove already at work for Romney/Jeb2012.

.

[patrice]

11. ABSOLUTELY Right! Concretizing the base is the ONLY thing that makes sense of this VP pick.

[Bread and Circus]

9. I thought we already knew this.

[sabra]

10. I guess more confirmation?

[Roland99]

12. If by conservative base they mean Racist, Bigoted pseudo-Christians then...yeah. She nails it.

[rateyes]

13. Thanks Karl. In one fell swoop you saved the country from McCain,

Lieberman and Palin. Only decent thing you've done your whole miserable life.

[Hellataz]

14. That's too funny, they screwed themselves.

First, I knew that McCain was made to choose Palin and secondly I bet this whole "Maverick"-Non partisan - Not the same as Bush Republican campaign would have worked so much better with Liberman,

I never understood this "energize the base" theory. There's no way the GOP base would have voted for Obama no matter who the republican canidates were.
So essentially they picked Palin to get the right wing vote, when they already had it, and it backfired and they lost any independents or even some Dems that had admired McCain and considered voting for him.

[Boo Boo]

15. Rove can't steal it if "the base" doesn't show up. /nt

[Phx_Dem]

16. The big problem with Turdblossum's strategy is

that Palin energized the nutjobs (aka the base), but turned off everyone else. No one can win an election with ONLY their base.

Rove is either losing his touch, or he doesn't really want McCain to win. Probably the latter because very few people like John McCain and Rove probably hates him for going against Bush and the party way back when.

[WindRiverMan]

17. Rove is an idiot!

Just because you can memorize a whole bunch of numbers and keep them handy for regurgitation in your mind does not mean you can USE them to make good decisions. Being intelligent is okay. Being wise in invaluable.

[Stop Cornyn]

18. Rove's clients are only interested in winning down ballot in red states so they can gerrymander the

redistricting again.

Palin is all about getting out the hardest-core of the 'thug party to protect the state house races in the South and Big Sky states.