Does anyone else think this Palin thing is a ruse? The Karl Rove republicans aren't this stupid.

[rhett o rick]

I think they have something up their sleeve. Maybe they are sacrificing Palin and letting her draw fire away from McSame and at the last minute she will step down and Romney will step in. This would save the Mitchmeister from facing Joe Biden. While we are all having a good laugh keep our hands on our wallets.

[gravity]

1. They are that stupid

Now that we have a strong Democratic ticket, they don't know what the hell to do.

[rhett o rick]

35. They were smart enough to win in 2000 and 2004. Sorry if I am skeptical. nm

[niceypoo]

62. Bushes 'success' is a result of Karl Rove republicans judgement

He is the least popular president in History

Do the math.

[Bolo Boffin]

2. The only thing is there are deadlines for ballots

The RNC has it down to the wire on making some ballots. That's one big reason why they couldn't postpone. They've got to have this nailed down for good or for ill by Thursday.

The Bushies were all ready for Hurricane Gustav, but Hurricane Sarah has blindsided them.

[Bolo Boffin]

3. dupe. n/t

[AzDar]

4. Yes, they are. KKKarl was never the political genius he was reported to be;

he just lied, cheated, and stooped lower than anyone else would...that's his only advantage.

[rhett o rick]

36. Yes but........most of his tricks have worked and he is still free doing more tricks. I will feel

better if he were in jail.

[Hansel]

74. And 911 didn't hurt either.

There is no way the American people would have responded to his crap is there was no 911. Rove manipulated that shamelessly.

Never in my life have I seen such a campaign to get the American people to cower like little helpless babies.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Sometimes they are this stupid.

I wouldn't attribute a clever plot to them this time -- I think McCain just stepped on his dick, really hard, without any help from Karl Rove. We have given that asshole WAY too much credit.

Remember before the 2006 elections when he claimed he had "the math"?

[NotThisTime]

32. I completely agree with this assessment... McCain is this stupid

[rhett o rick]

37. Duh, of course McStupid is stupid, but so was Bush. The neocon-fascists that are

actually running the party love the stupid. Palin, hello.

[Virginia Dare]

42. Add cynical and arrogant to that..

what a deadly mix. Of course Bush was stupid, cynical and arrogant too, but luckily for him Dick Cheney was in charge of his V.P. vetting...:rofl:

[BeatleBoot]

6. Trying to drown out Gustav perhaps?

I doubt it.

Though I find it really hard to believe that the GOP would not vet someone.

[samuraiguppy]

7. i agree

Rove is the master of dirty tricks. This whole thing was somehow planned by him. I don't know how--and I don't know if we will ever get to the bottom of it--but there are no depths to which Rove will not sink to discredit Obama. That I do know for sure.

[Bluebear]

8. No.

[MissDeeds]

9. It does seem strange

that they would choose a VP with so much baggage. These evil twerps never do anything without a reason. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm inclined to be very, very suspicious.

[kwenu]

10. Oh yes. They are that stupid.

[Kurt Remarque]

11. nah...

she was selected in the proud republican tradition of dubya, dan the man and ronnie

[D23MIURG23]

12. I don't think having a Veep candidate shredded in a week and then recalled

will improve thier electoral prospects. It just makes McCain look like an incompetent.

[terrya]

13. No. This is a major league, epic fuckup.

This breaks new ground in all around fuckupedness.

[CJCRANE]

14. They make it up as they go along.

Palin was supposed to be the new Hillary. She can't make that comparison anymore because the freepers/fundies booed her last time she did.

[Cha]

15. If rove's so freakin' smart..what happened

to bush that nobody wants him OR cheney at their pigsty convention?

[gemlake]

16. Remember this?

Yep, they're that stupid.

[rhett o rick]

82. I agree that Georgie and McStupid are stupid, but they ain't running the party either. nm

[AZBlue]

17. No.

[IamyourTVandIownyou]

18. Not sure. Perhaps the old guard in Alaska wants the state back.

And by shoving her into the Public Eye, they're hoping it ends her term as Governor too?

Dunno.

[Raine]

19. No, they REALLY ARE that stupid. nt

[Sugarcoated]

20. Nope

Pig boy and McFudd fucked up. Obama's running circles around them and they panicked and fucked up. That's how I see it.

[flamingdem]

21. So what do you think Karl Rove and Co. is really up to this time? Bait and switch or ... nt

[sniffa]

22. No. Replacing her will be even more of an epic fail

Choosing her was bad enough, but replacing her will hasten that hammer pounding the final nail in the GOP coffin.

[Clear Blue Sky]

23. Rove is good at playing rope-a-dope...nt

[Sugarcoated]

28. So is Barack Obama

[dailykoff]

24. She's the perfect symbolic veep, and his job is symbolism

I think he figured they could brazen out any rough spots.

[NEDem]

25. They simply fucked up, really bad.

Rove isn't part of the mccain campaign.

[SOS]

69. Not officially

But his marionette, Steve Schmidt, is front and center of the McCain campaign.

[NorthCarolina]

26. Palin energizes evangelicals=plausible excuse for another stolen election

eom

[DeschutesRiver]

27. I had a wild thought the other night

based on premises which may not be valid, but here it is.

Premise - Karl Rove isn't this dumb. He may not be King of the IQ charts, but this isn't a mistake he or his operatives are capable of making.

Premise - Our country has a god awful mess on its hands economically, one that is going to reach dramatic proportions sometime next year; an economy that these stupid repubs have been doing all manner of short sighted and truly horrifically stupid things to prop up until the day after elections.

Premise - The sheer success of the DNC made all true republicans cough up their breakfast.

So now the facts tell them that it will be an uphill battle to win, and even if they do, when our economy tanks it will be such a bad thing for quite a few years, that that McCain will be the last repub president for the foreseeable future. Right or wrong, he will be blamed for not handling the mess right. Probably rightly so, because of all the candiates they could have picked, they picked John "I know NOTHING about the Economy" McCain. Maybe better to let it be the democrats turn in office; and blame them for it, thus preserving a realistic chance of being back in office in the near term. No point in throwing good money after bad a moment longer.

How to do it? McCain is a rash, mean, bottom of the class, legend in his own mind. So you panic him with the DNC results, tell him too bad it is too late to pick someone like Palin who might actually garner all those Hillary votes and all the religious right votes, and bemoan how little Tim Pawlenty can help with this. You hank on him all week long during the convention, culminating during Obama's speech with little whispers in his ear, that maybe it is not to late to try to pander/pickup those two group by just being a "maverick", and changing from Pawlenty to Palin. Use his fat head, fear and genera insecurity to make him think picking Palin is his own move to save his campaign. Knowing that Palin is possibly the worst ever pick he could make. Knowing she was not vetted properly by McCain's real inner group, but she was vetted enough by Rove/Rovians that she remained an ace in the hole if they ever wished to leave enough rope out for the stupid old bastard to hang himself, while saving the party a place at future administration tables.

Bam - McCain does it. And history is now getting rewritten on the hour, every hour. Bam, the Republicans that really run things just tossed McCain under the bus, using his own rashness, bad judgment and ego to place the blame for it on him. Because unless something really strange was going on behind the scenes, this is worse judgment than usual at this level, way too transparent to be a mistake.

Anyway, either that or McCain is using this as a novel way to setup his next SNL appearance.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

29. They are not that smart, nor are they all powerful wizards. Just ruthless and immoral.

Their formula of cheating and smears will work under many situations. But their own shitty president has made their party so disreputable that all of this will probably not make up their vote deficit.

There are limits. There are still tons of stupid people in America. But enough is enough. And this Palin pick is really the last straw.

[Arugula Latte]

30. The scenario you describe would NOT instill confidence in McCain's abilities, to say the least.

No, I really think they are this stupid.

[rhett o rick]

40. I hope so. I will feel better after an Obama victory. Don't think we should

take it for granted. By the way I was raised in Portland. Graduated in the second graduating class at Marshall Hi.

[rhett o rick]

41. I hope so. I will feel better after an Obama victory. Don't think we should

take it for granted. By the way I was raised in Portland. Graduated in the second graduating class at Marshall Hi.

[votetastic]

31. An off the wall pick like Palin achieved its purpose

It rallied the base, and changed the subject. I guess the theory is "any publicity is good publicity".

[WeDidIt]

33. Karl Said the GOP woudl pick up seats in '06, too. n/t

[northernlights]

34. Rove isn't this stupid, but

to me it says how desperate they were after the convention.

Just because they were citing the regular polls doesn't mean they were believing them.

And with 2 Joe Kennedy groups organizing and training people to monitor the elections for fraud....

Well, damn, it's getting harder and harder for them to steal'em!

[rhett o rick]

38. I was devistated in 2004. I will not feel comfortable until Rove is in jail. And maybe not

even then.

[myrna minx]

39. Why on earth would Rove et al want this train wreck during the convention?

This is a whopper of a mistake. LOL!

[many a good man]

43. Republicans have never lost an election underestimating the intelligence of the American people

That's a 21st century paraphrase of the great HL Mencken quote. Let's hope and pray it proves wrong this time.

[L. Coyote]

44. They were losing on reason. Emotion is what this is all about!

This might be much smarter politics than anyone realizes.
Both "sympathy" and "empathy" are very strong emotions.
If you cannot win on reason, emotion is the key to winning.

BUT, the corruption is what they are seeking to immunize.
That may backfire, IF we don't get caught up on the Emotion Express!!@

"It’s The Corruption, Stupid" = Abramoff, McCain, Palin & the GOP
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6870492

[sofa king]

45. I was thinking the same thing this morning.

Harriet Miers, Part II. Bait--outrage--switch. And so on. Dangle the unqualified woman until the ravens pluck her eyes out and then put another old white guy on the ticket, as planned, while saying, "we tried."

But there's plenty to suggest that yes, in fact, they are that stupid. McCain apparently really did let James Dobson pick his running mate--and left the vetting to Dobson. Tim Pawlenty is apparently genuinely pissed off that he was passed over.

It's a total flippin' disaster now. And even better, thanks to that hurricane it looks like the nomination itself is going to be rammed through, and if the fool delegates are still listening to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News like they're supposed to be, they don't know half of what's going on yet.

This is high comedy.

[City of Mills]

46. The Palin pick is looking like a Bush-style strategy

Present a candidate with so many scandals it's hard to focus attention and energy on just one, thus running everyone around in circles and causing scandal bleedover (see Palins/Bristol/Preggers/Coverup/Baby1/Baby2?)

[Zomby Woof]

47. Karl Rove is an overrated hack

Always has been, always will be.

The absolute apeshit tinfoiling about him I have seen on DU the past 7 years I have been here has always been the worst aspect of discussion here. People, Karl Rove ain't shit.

[rhett o rick]

56. So you don't like him, I get it. But he has been very successful.

Bush a very stupid idiot was president for 8 years because KKKarl helped with his dirty tricks.

[msanthrope]

48. Remember Watergate? John Dean??? No?? Too Young???

Yeah...these guys are that stupid.....just as John Dean told us they were...

thing is, this time, it's up to us to choke them 'til they are dead....

[rhett o rick]

57. They were smart enough to steal two presidential elections. It will be up to Obama

to punish them until they are "dead". I doubt he will. Democrats never seem to be able to deal the finishing blow. The neocon-fascists will be around always looking for a weak point.

[amborin]

49. rovian rethugs aren't stupid at all

only dems are, in that regard

we're taking the bait, not exactly sure what it is yet

certainly this v.p. nomination was desired by the conservative blogosphere for months

it excites so many...the deniers, the anti-abortionists, the gun lovers, etc.....

so, in that regard, it provides an incredible get out the vote impetus

all those creationists phone banking like mad

dems should be worried....

try to see this from the rethugs' viewpoint

stop preaching to the choir about how bad palin is

of course she's an unfit nitwit

but that's not how rethugs are seeing it, and this is all part of a grand strategy

[Sugarcoated]

50. Rove et al

aren't superbeings, they can make mistakes. They have made mistakes, look at the '06 election. Come on people, what's up with this?

[amborin]

52. '06?

sure, dems made gains

but, hell, look at the overall environment: total disaster at home and abroad

and dems barely squeaked out a majority in congress

i mean, given the state of things, dems should have won the intermim election in a landslide in every district

[Sugarcoated]

70. I don't know what the inside baseball was in '06

But from what I remember, Democrats were ahead in just about every race that wasn't jerry rigged. In the house, though, we achieved impressive gains. It was the Senate that was the squeeker.

I also remember KKKarl bloviating about about how the races would go that defied the poll numbers, that made no sense to me. And guess what? He was wrong, he's fallible. We've bulit him up to be some mythical Dr. Evil. Evil, yes, but the smartest guy in politics? Smart, but waaaay over-rated.

[rhett o rick]

55. I agree that they are not superbeings, but they are willing to do things well beyond what we are.

We tend to judge them on what we will do. That's a mistake. They will literally do anything to gain and retain power. They will steal elections and start wars in Georgia. I am only saying be vigilant for their tactics.

[Shanti Mama]

51. McCain chose her all on his own. His team is probably NOT on board. nt

[backscatter712]

53. self-delete --- dupe

[backscatter712]

54. They want our eyes off Obama and off the real issues.

Why else would they throw up Half-Baked Alaska, this Mary Kay lady turned VP nominee, with a huge rats nest of scandals and salacious sex stories involving her and her daughters?

Yep, it's the sex part. The media can't resist it. The media will be all Palin, 24/7, from now until the election, because she's even juicier than Brittney Spears or Paris Hilton.

And meanwhile, the Republican's failures and criminal acts will go uncovered. The scandals of McCain will go uncovered, and most importantly, the ideas and speeches from Obama and Biden will go uncovered.

It's their last desperate Hail Mary to avoid losing the election so badly Diebold can't fix it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

58. Sometimes stupid things are simply stupid things.

There's no devious master plan. Just a whole lotta stupid.

[bdamomma]

59. I think McInsane really wanted Joe Liebermann

and Palin was chosen for him. I hope this choice for VP blows up in their face. This smells of Rove, perhaps a distraction story while Cheney is away in Georgia. You never know with these thugs.

[progressivebydesign]

60. The GOP is in shambles. There is no secret-plan, they fucked up.

They went for the cheap sound bite in order to take the wind out of the sails of the Democratic Convention. McCain took a gamble on the cheap headline and he caved into pressure not to choose someone he'd rather work with. The RNC sold their souls to the devil, and their Party is more dysfunctional than a family in a Ben Stiller movie.

[seabeyond]

61. Karl Rove republicans aren't this stupid... yes they are. they really are

the media and their supporters let them get away with is all. but they really really are this stupid

[nc4bo]

63. While we're concentrating on the stateside republican circus,

we shouldn't forget to take a peak at what's going on around Russia, Iran, Iraq, Poland, the Black Sea, etc.

Mr. Putin wants to know what's going on: "We don't understand what American ships are doing on the Georgian shores, but this is a question of taste, it's a decision by our American colleagues," he reportedly said. "The second question is why the humanitarian aid is being delivered on naval vessels armed with the newest rocket systems."

Gotta watch what these slime balls are doing behind our backs too!

[amborin]

75. rethugs orchestrated the entire georgian invasion

russia was totally correct to defend abkazia and s. ossettia

this gave rethugs a chance to use their fear and tough talk to cow the electorate

and surely rove selected palin

just look already how dems are allowing side by side comparisons of her experience and obama's

this is horrific

to descend onto this turf

[myrna minx]

64. Yes they are that stupid. I disagree with you. Rove only wins when he controls the message.

This is the Hindenburg.

[Alter Ego]

65. No, I think they are.

Karl's brilliant plans failed in spectacular fashion in 2006--it's time to stop thinking of him as God and start thinking of him as a pasty, pudgy, balding, sexually-frustrated perv who will never sleep with a woman (or man) not bought and paid for.

[creature of habit]

66. Rove could spin this.........

Give shit and receive gold.

[npincus]

67. Rove-co was pulling for Mittens, but the "maverick" decided to buck them

per the article kpete posted today.

[Demi_Babe]

68. No, I don't t think this Palin thing is a ruse at all...they fucked up royally

[trashcanistanista]

71. No this is for real.

They got their base back and the money they need to at least put up some kind of fight. Rove saved some of the party and focused on his guarantees, the christo-right, probably the only loyal rethugs left. He will get the 28%ers and maybe some that normally would not come out and vote.

[Lone_Wolf]

72. The Palin pick is fiendishly clever....

The Republicans understand that there are millions of people (mostly simple, poor, white, rural folk) who identify with the Palins. The Republicans are hoping, in fact counting on, liberal critics ridicule the Palins... Saying things like they belong on the Jerry Springer Show, call them trailer trash, etc.

The Republicans know fully well that this ridicule will push these voters into pulling the lever for McCain/Palin in November.

Ridiculing the Palins, instead of focusing on the issues, will only contribute to the success of the ultra-right.

[amborin]

77. YES, you've got it, exactly

this will doom dems among the trailer trash set and the rest of the electorate that they desperately need for a nov win

the palin choice was pure rove

[rhett o rick]

80. Yes I believe you have something there. nm

[tinrobot]

73. Stupid is as stupid does...

They did a really stupid thing...

Even George Bush was smart enough to withdraw Harriet Miers because it was a stupid choice. I wonder if McCain can swallow his pride long enough to withdraw Palin.

[rhett o rick]

81. I don't think McCain is making the decisions. He doesn't even know where he is most of the time. nm

[EstimatedProphet]

76. This is a fuck-up

There is no way they can spin their way out of this. Replacing Palin won't help either, because they have just shown the world that they are impetuous by picking her in the first place, and people aren't going to forget it.

[justiceischeap]

78. My theory: Sacrificing '08 to make a stronger run in '12 (eom)

[terrya]

79. No. This is a boneheaded fuckup

As EarlG pointed out, McCain had 6 MONTHS to settle on a VP, correctly, comprehensively vet him/her and to show his good judgement. And all of that has been thrown out the window.

Sometimes, fuckups are just fuckups. Not some sinster, Rovian plot.