60 Minutes: Palin Said VP Selection Was 'God's Plan' -- Lieberman Was McCain's First Choice
(Just photos...story and videos are below)
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Video: Revelations From The Campaign -- CBS 60 Minutes, January 10, 2010
MORE VIDEO at the bottom
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Not trying to stir up controversy. My thoughts on Palin are here. I will say again, that McCain made a huge mistake in his choice of Palin. He would have won the election had he chosen Lieberman. I am convinced, and here's why:
- Conservatives upset over Lieberman would have had no other choice. Do you honestly think they would have voted for Obama? Lieberman is pro-life.
- Independents (20% of voters) would have been drawn to the candidacy of a Democrat and Republican together.
- Instead independents voted overwhelmingly for Obama because of the subconscious, yet pervasive fear that McCain would die and Sarah would become President.
- May I remind you that Sarah Palin didn't know about the Korean War, had no idea what the Federal Reserve did, and thought Saddam Hussein was responsible for 911.
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Sarah Palin, Bailout Socialist >>
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Authors of a new book, "Game Change," and John McCain's former top campaign strategist reveal behind-the-scenes issues from the GOP and Democratic camps during the campaign. Anderson Cooper reports.
"Roughly up to a week before the convention, we were still talking very seriously about Senator Lieberman. But once word leaked out that he was under serious consideration, the blowback was ferocious," Schmidt remembered.
"Ferocious," because many conservatives thought Lieberman was far too liberal. Schmidt says they feared the Republican National Convention might reject him.
McCain couldn't risk that, so they needed a last-minute replacement.
"So, suddenly you're in a jam," Cooper remarked.
"We were," Schmidt acknowledged.
"That's the state of desperation they're in as they sit down with McCain that Sunday night over a dinner of deep fried burritos and say to him, 'What about Sarah Palin?'" author John Heilemann told Cooper.
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Sarah Palin's Tweets As Interpreted By William Shatner >>
Daily Show Video: Sarah Palin, Rogue Warrior >>
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Heilemann, of New York Magazine, and Mark Halperin, of Time, covered the campaign and spent the last two years interviewing 200 political insiders for their book, "Game Change."
Among their revelations is how McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, spotted Sarah Palin while searching the Internet for possible female vice presidential candidates.
"Rick Davis saw one interview she did with Charlie Rose where she was very much the Sarah Palin that people find appealing. She was lively, she was engaging, she popped off the screen. And he said, 'Wow, she jumps out,'" Halperin said.
"McCain boxed himself in. He needed a game-changing pick for vice president. And that left them with a last minute pick of someone who was, to McCain, a virtual stranger, and was, to his senior staffers, an absolute stranger," he added.
Just two days before McCain publicly announced his choice, Palin arrived in Arizona to meet with the senator and his top staffers, including chief campaign strategist Steve Schmidt.
"I said, 'If this project goes forward you'll be one of the most famous people in the world by Friday. Will you be able to live with that?' She said she would be able to," Schmidt remembered.
Asked how Palin responded after McCain asked her to be his vice president, Schmidt said, "She was very calm. Nonplussed. I said, 'You don't seem nervous at all about this.' And she said, 'No, it's God's plan.'"
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Bonus Video: At the Wasilla Assembly of God, Sarah Palin tells the audience that the war in Iraq is God's will and the US is simply carrying out God's plan.
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DB here. I wish we could take God out of the discussion of war. As someone who was brought up in the Greek Orthodox church (I've been an atheist since my 20s), and taught about a kind, loving and forgiving God, I'm way beyond disgusted by the use of religion in the invocation of war.
A thought for believers: if there is a God, I'm pretty sure he doesn't support killing of innocents. Save God for soldiers in the bunkers, and not for the mouths of politicians.
Jan 11, 2010 at 11:51 PM
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