Thursday, November 06, 2008

Now the juicy stuff can come out

I can’t wait to dig into Newsweek’s special, deliciously long election project, Secrets of the 2008 Campaign. Three of the seven chapters have been posted to the Newsweek website so far.

They’ve saved up all the gossipy behind-the-scenes stories they had promised not to reveal until after the election. NewsGang Live junkies should savor this tidbit about discussions around choosing Hillary as VP. @stevegillmor was always convinced that Obama’s staff bore a grudge, that it colored their advice, but that Obama himself might not have been so set against the pick. I always agreed.

Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary’s name came up in veep discussions, and Obama’s advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, “Are we sure?” He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Sen. Joe Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.

This is one of those once-every-several-weeks occasions when I’m moved to print out a long article so I can cuddle up with it and relish it. I keep thinking I should play around with an alternate CSS stylesheet that makes the presentation of things like this more book-like.

Separately from the Newsweek roundup, it comes out that Sarah Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent. She thought it was a country. I don’t know about you, but I’m not done with her. I say pile on the ridicule if it helps keep that horrid woman off the national stage. I’m totally in Steve’s camp on that score, too.

Newsweek’s piece is supposed to cover the uptick in threats against Obama in September and early October when she was busiest “energizing” her base with the associations game. That person, for all her Christian professions, has an ugly ugly soul. I’ve never seen any other politician bask in boos the way others soak up cheers.