Chef McCain was between a rock and a hard place in the Campaign kitchen... As a candidate to replace the increasingly unpopular CheneyBush team cuisine there was little time and tough choices to make to find the right menu to lure people back to the GOP Cafe.
All the past GOP menu strategies were becoming overripe, stale and a bad fit for McC. The Veep pick would have to be a balancing act for the bill of fare to try and milk all the old tried and true popular elements again while trying to decide what they would lose or gain with the available choices.
So here's McCain, a political chef with an old set of recipes that need updating to get the customers to think they still like it and come back for more... what does he do? Especially considering that he probably will be stuck substituting substandard ingredients and then have rely on a really effective PR campaign to trick people into ordering a worse version of the same old Republican Burgers.
Maybe Some new, hot, attractive side dishes to distract attention would be just the thing. Some complementary flavors and textures would make the whole presentation more palatable for loyal customers and maybe lure in some new ones. Hmm, popcorn squirrel? Not the best choice maybe. Lots of possibilities to choose from but none exciting enough, low in saturated wackiness and acceptable to the restaurant's co-owners who want to return to more fundamental, conservative dishes that are somehow still engergizing. Mitten Sauerkraut? Good and Pawlenty MinneSODAS?
NO! It's going to be Palin MOOSEBURGERS!
Desperate times need a magic ingredient. Palin-burger components made the owners happy and on paper seemed like an attractive combination of delicious fresh taste sensations. So after a superficial BG Quality/Vetting check, they thought they saw a win-win deal right down the line... Yes! And so it was that the GOP buyers for the restaurant went for the cheap flashy source and quickly rolled out the new menu, decor and sign out front with great fanfare and excitement.
And later when their selection appeared to have some drawbacks, they hoped not too many would notice the actual quality of this hot house tomato, this gamy, wild Alaskan ungulate was not what it seemed.
They were victims of their own desires. They wanted a magic ingredient pick and wanted it so bad that their expectations made her into what they thought they were looking for. It sure looked to them that they would now have a full multi-course pandering meal complete with YUM YUM victory pudding.... And they imagined all the other elements in play, economy etc. would just tick along under control, relatively static, long enough for them to squeak through to victory with just enough customers by relying on the usual Repub flim flam gravy. In other words they figured just enough voters would swallow the New Mooseburgers and think they liked it and not notice the gristle, horrible wilted side salad and excuse the mummified Freedom Fries deep fried in saturated, rancid Neocon-ola.
So they went with yesterday's stale and overused recipe. In the kitchen Rovian jr sou-chefs and short order fry-boys all were all following the unrevised Rove election cookbook without understanding just what ingredients were no longer going to work and what needed tweaking. They needed fresher newer approaches. But they were blind to the fact that the very things that seemed sure-fire winners over the last 28 years are so yesterday and bad for everyone and also did not see that many of the hot buttons for cooking it also needed rewiring and that the public was just not going to respond reliably anymore. Too much reality had crept in in the meantime, too much oversight had disappeared (health inspectors, USDA standards etc.) and too much had been wrecked, overcooked and it all was costing way too much anyway. Yes my friends, too many people woke up and are in the process of dumping the unhealthy, over-promoted GOP recipes. In short, Too many Americans have very bad indigestion from the Republican political diet and they won't swallow it any more.
They have come to realize that the McCain main course is too unpredictable, old and stringy, and using too much extreme fundie hot corn-syrup sugar-sauce or even too much sour Mitten vinegar won't cover that up. Can't have both and either way the recipe still makes too many people gag. And all the Republican side dishes, overcooked or contaminated or just plain bad no matter how much fear ketchup and mustard and mayo or secret win everything special sauce you slather it with, there are fewer repeat customers in the GOP fast food joint.
And now that many have tried the free debate and interview samples and found them flavor-free and indigestible the word is getting out....
Chef McCains goose is cooked