A BuzzFeed Community contributor included former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on a list of the top-ten worst running mates in presidential history and parroted the much-debunked conventional wisdom about Palin.
Palin is put on the same list as true vice presidential disasters such as Thomas Eagleton, Spiro Agnew, John Edwards, and Dan Quayle.
According to the article, “the half-term Governor from Alaska is widely recognized as the single most glaring reason for John McCain’s defeat in 2008.”
Actually, had it not been for Palin, McCain would have lost by a larger margin than he did. Palin energized conservatives and put McCain ahead of Barack Obama in the polls until the financial crisis hit in the summer of 2008.
When that financial crisis hit, voters had a chance to measure up the inexperienced first-term senator from Illinois against the veteran senator from Arizona.
The McCain campaign, led by Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, decided to suspend the campaign, go “all-in,” allowed McCain to go into a critical meeting at the White House without having read the three-page bailout plan that would be discussed. McCain, because of his paid professional hacks, looked silly. The campaign was over.
That’s the truth, which the mainstream media — in collusion with the failed political professionals — has tried to rewrite.
And outlets like BuzzFeed simply perpetuate these false memes.
The article also writes that “Palin was selected after very little vetting by the McCain camp.” This mistakes Palin’s being selected late with her having not been thoroughly vetted, which Washington lawyer A.B. Culvahouse, the person who vetted Palin, denied was true.
The author then writes that Palin “was largely viewed as unready for the office of Vice President” when Palin had a more impressive resume for executive leadership than John McCain, Mitt Romney, and every candidate currently being considered for vice president.
The writer also claims that “the McCain staff became increasingly frustrated with Palin, and sheltered her from unscripted encounters from the press” and cites faux-Republicans like Kathleen Parker and David Frum, whose existences depend on being toady supplicants to the mainstream media elite and whose opinions conservatives could care less about, who both said Palin was not qualified for office.
Of course, Palin was the only person in the 2008 campaign who had the guts to expose then-candidate Obama’s associations, and the mainstream media-loving McCain campaign tried to muzzle her.
Furthermore, the McCain campaign tried to turn the most unconventional and anti-establishment in Palin into an establishment drone, trying to make her memorize the political positions of McCain who himself did not seem to be familiar with.
The writer also writes that “the McCain campaign quickly came to resent Palin, and eventually blamed her for the loss to Obama.”
As was detailed in a series of Breitbart News articles, the political consultants associated with the McCain campaign decided that the only way for them to continue to be gainfully employed in politics was to falsely blame the loss on Palin.
BuzzFeed, of course, is all too willing to continue to perpetuate these false memes as enthusiastically as they protect Obama.
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