Sarah Palin reminded everyone this week that two of President Trump’s most vocal, self-righteous critics are, at their core, little more than self-serving political mercenaries, whose stated principles seem to depend entirely on how they stand to benefit.
We are talking, of course, about Palin’s 2008 Republican campaign colleagues — Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt and MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, both of whom are now proud, card-carrying members of the anti-Trump “resistance.”
On Tuesday, following presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s announcement that he had asked Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate, Palin posted a note to social media, congratulating the California lawmaker and offering the senator some helpful tips on running in a presidential election. The note is gracious. It is also a none-too-subtle dig at the late Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign advisers and handlers, some of whom were working to position Palin as the fall guy for the GOP’s defeat in 2008 even before the election was over.
“Out of the chute trust no one new,” the former Alaska governor said this week. “Fight mightily to keep your own team with you – they know you, know your voice, and most importantly are trustworthy; don’t get muzzled – connect with media and voters in your own unique way.”
Palin added, “Some yahoos running campaigns will suffocate you with their own self-centered agenda so remember you were chosen for who you are. So stay connected with America as you smile and ignore deceptive ‘handlers’ trying to change you.”
These are clear references to Palin’s disastrous experience as McCain’s running mate and the way in which she was ill-served by aides who later used her failure as a means to reinvent themselves as the ever-marketable, anti-Republican “Republican strategist.”
Schmidt and Wallace specifically are suspected of leaking unflattering Palin anecdotes to the press during the 2008 election, which portrayed the former governor as a manic villain and her aides as exasperated, savvy experts who could not be blamed for the campaign’s many failures.
Schmidt, who sold McCain on Palin in the first place, also based much of his post-2008 career rehabilitation on tearing down the former governor, disparaging her in very notable, public forums in a transparent attempt to ingratiate himself with media and political circles eager to gawk at the failed vice presidential candidate’s personal gaffes and misfortunes. He notably provided journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin with dirt for their 2009 tell-all, Game Change, trading campaign gossip for a chance to reinvent himself for MSNBC-style audiences.
But it is not just quiet leaks. Schmidt is also happy to badmouth Palin in public.
Wallace likewise peddled campaign information to Heilemann and Halperin. And like Schmidt, she also has no problem publicly disparaging Palin.
McCain himself viewed the choice by his former aides to collaborate on Game Change, which, naturally, paints both Schmidt and Wallace in a flattering, sympathetic light, as a gross betrayal of confidence.
“I don’t understand, even in the tough world of politics, why there continues to be such an assault on a good and decent person,” the late senator said at the time, referring to his running mate. “I admired and respect her. I’m proud of our campaign.”
Later, after Wallace and Schmidt were very notably shut out of McCain’s funeral services in 2018, a person familiar with the arrangement told Politico, “That cathedral will be filled with people who stabbed McCain in the front. Schmidt and Nicolle and Weaver stabbed him in the back, and you can’t find a single McCain loyalist who will say different or feels different.”
On Tuesday, Palin had one last piece of advice for Harris, “Have fun! This is the greatest country in the world and hopefully you’ll be blessed beyond belief, like I was, with meeting new people from all walks of life and see just how great it is!”
May Harris, the third woman in U.S. history to be nominated for vice president by a major political party, be better served in 2020 than Palin was in her time.
