When the Republican convention was still in the first flush of excitement over Sarah Palin, two veteran party supporters made their views known on a cable news show. Actually, they thought the show, or at least their participation in it, was finished.
“It’s over,” said Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan (the pair are pictured above back in the 1980s) said in the famous “hot mic” incident. What was “over” apparently was the election, because of John McCain’s tapping of Palin to be his running mate.
Agreeing with her was strategist Mike Murphy. The latter for good measure used words like “cynical” and “gimmicky” about the pick.
Well, Palin wowed the convention with her speech, touching off her short-lived honeymoon. Meanwhile, an embarrassed Noonan said her words were misconstrued. Since then, however, she has joined the chorus of criticism directed at the Alaska governor’s candidacy, saying it’s a “mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.”
Let’s add to that the defection of Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist of the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004.
Dowd said on a Time Warner Summit panel that McCain “knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with... He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk. He knows that."
The strategist’s disillusionment with the Bush presidency and the Iraq war has been well publicized. And although he still works for Republican candidates, he did say back in April 2007 that Barack Obama was the only one of the declared candidates that he liked.
Obama, of course, has been remarkably successful in attracting Republicans. Among the most interesting are sisters-in-law Susan Eisenhower, the president’s granddaughter who spoke at the Democratic Convention, and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the younger daughter of Richard Nixon, who has donated $2,300 to the Obama campaign.
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