'A civil war between her campaign and Mr. McCain's...'

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: November 5, 2008 - 9:17 pm

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From David Hulen in Anchorage --

There's a lot of this kind of thing starting to show up: Anonymous-sourced stories about strife inside the McCain and Palin campaigns. The New York Times is reporting tonight on "a civil war between her campaign and Mr. McCain’s that raged from mid-September up until moments before Mr. McCain’s concession speech on Tuesday night."

Palin, the Times notes, declined to address the issue in her interviews today, suggesting people focus on the Obama victory. And the story points out that end-of-campaign finger-pointing is hardly a new phenomenon, and that McCain aides "now have an interest in blaming outside factors for their loss, making Ms. Palin a tempting target."

The story describes outrage within the McCain campaign over the governor's clothing purchases, quoting anonymous staffers as saying the budget was $20,000 to $25,000 instead of the $150,000 said to have been spent.

"The advisers described the McCain campaign as incredulous about the shopping spree and said Republican National Committee lawyers were likely to go to Alaska to conduct an inventory and try to account for all that was spent," the story says.

This has been making the rounds: Fox News Channel's Carl Cameron reporting, also from anonymous sources, accusations that Palin was difficult and "lacked a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president and a heartbeat away from the presidency." This includes, according to Cameron, not understanding some geography basics, including that Africa is a continent.

This comes as Newsweek promotes its "special election project" (preview here), which paints the governor in a highly critical light (again, based on anonymous sources said to be inside the campaigns.) Sample: Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy...According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

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