I'm not sure that this has been talked about, but as Sarah Palin starts to surface, her higher profile might not be good for her own party. Which, of course, is good for the Obama campaign.
First, of course, we have her statement on Friday to Friendly Fox News:
Sarah Palin criticized John McCain's decision to pull campaign resources out of Michigan in an interview with FOX News on Friday, saying she and her husband Todd would "be happy" to campaign in the economically distraught battleground state.
The Republican vice presidential nominee, on the heels of her debate with Joe Biden, also took a second stab at questions that seemed to trip her up during recent interviews, declaring that she looks "forward to speaking to the media more and more every day."
Palin said the decision to pull out of Michigan, which was announced Thursday, was "not a surprise" to her since polls show McCain slipping in the state.
But Palin said that when she read the news, she "fired off a quick e-mail and said, 'Oh come on, do we have to?'"
"Todd and I, we'd be happy to get to Michigan ...We'd be so happy to speak to the people there in Michigan who are hurting," she said. "Whatever Todd and I can do in realizing what their challenges in that state are .... I wanna get back to Michigan and I want to try."
Then we have this tidbit from !CBS News on Sunday night:
OMAHA, NEB. - Sarah Palin said at a hastily scheduled Sunday night rally in this solidly red state that the decision to come here was hers alone and was not the defensive move by her campaign to lock up Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District that many pundits have suggested.
"The pundits today on TV—one of them was saying, check out the vice president’s schedule, check out where she’s going — she’s going to Nebraska," Palin said.
"But the pundit was saying the only reason she’d be going there is ‘cause they’re scared, so they gotta go there and shore up votes. And I so wanted to reach into that TV and say no, I’m going to Nebraska because I want to go to Nebraska.
Nebraska is one of only two states that splits its Electoral College votes, and the Obama campaign is making a serious play for the solidly-Republican 2nd Congressional District, which is represented by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. But Palin suggested that the obvious political ramifications had nothing to do with her decision to come here.
"And you can ask — and probably the reporters will ask — the top dogs in our campaign why am I in Nebraska, and it’s truly because I asked to come to the heartland of America today," she said.
Yes, Sarah is all "mavericky." But first she questions the leader of her own ticket. Mavericky, yes, but it also puts into question what kind of leader John McCain is if he can't even lead his own ticket. The McCain camp has shown it can't stay on message. Palin here is just adding to the chaos and is not showing any unity. She also puts McCain in a difficult position because any attempt by him to pull her back into line might just upset those base supporters he's trying to keep in line.
Now, the mavericky political neophyte decides to waste time in solid red Nebraska.
"I’m going to Nebraska because I want to go to Nebraska," Palin said.
What?
She's in the middle of a do-or-die campaign with less than 30 days left and her ticket is falling further behind and she just decides to pick up and go on a, what, high school field trip? And remember, the McCain campaign doesn't have a lot of money to burn, either. And now they have to fly her out of Nebraska to someplace meaningful?
Thanks to Sarah Palin, we have further proof that the McCain campaign is a rudderless ship. Here's what the McCain campaign did this weekend:
1 Let McCain take the weekend off, in Arizona, no less.
2 Let Palin go trotting off to a meaningless state.
3 Let the nation know that are desperate by abandoning an issues campaign and deciding to go dirty. With candidates who are both attached to a sh*t load of dirt themselves.
Bottom line is that letting Sarah be Sarah is doing more to destroy her own campaign and nothing to hurt the Obama campaign. Which is right where we want her.
Let Sarah be Sarah. Please!