McCain campaign: Fewer Palin appearances NOT related to inability to spontaneously answer questions

[Amerigo Vespucci]

September 25, 2008, 1:56 pm
Campaign: Palin Can’t Be Spared to Raise Money
By Michael Luo



When finance officials for Senator John McCain and the Republican National Committee drew up their fund-raising schedule for the fall, they had planned for his running mate to bear much of the load.

But that was before Mr. McCain’s pick of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska injected fresh energy into the Republican base and she emerged as an enormous draw on the campaign trail — often more of a draw than Mr. McCain himself.

So McCain-Palin campaign officials have elected to put the two together much of the time on the stump, instead of having them campaign separately, as is often the case for presidential tickets.

Ms. Palin’s fund-raising schedule was essentially halved after consultations between finance and political officials. But even that reduced scheduled has been cut back in the last few weeks to the point that she has only done one fund-raiser in Ohio to date, fund-raising officials said. Finance officials said they decided not to hold three or four events they had been planning under their revised schedule because of the demands for her on the trail.

Just this week, Cindy McCain appeared instead of Ms. Palin at a fund-raiser in Wyoming, as well as another one in Seattle, where Mrs. McCain made an appearance with Ms. Palin’s husband, Todd.
Fund-raising officials said Ms. Palin is still scheduled to do 10 fund-raisers in October, including events in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. She is also supposed to appear with Mr. McCain at a fund-raiser in New York.

Liberal bloggers and others have speculated that the drop-off of appearances by Ms. Palin is driven by the campaign’s reluctance to put her in a situation where she might have to spontaneously answer questions. But McCain fund-raisers said her time is better spent on the trail. Besides, they said, they are still on track to exceed their goal of raising $100 million in September and October.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/palin-cant-be-spared-to-raise-money-campaign-says/

[annabanana]

1. Oh I get it . .. just one of those pesky coincidences...

[ErinBerin84]

2. "liberal bloggers and others"????

it's fucking conventional wisdom at this point.

[NatBurner]

4. others = anyone with a pulse

[AtomicKitten]

3. Biden will make short of that theory in the VP debate.

[alsame]

5. Question - are they legally allowed to fund raise while the

campaign is 'suspended"? Anyone know?

[silverweb]

6. I don't know about that, but...

...I thought McSame had accepted public financing for his campaign.

Doesn't that preclude fundraising? :shrug: