Worst. Candidate. Ever.
By Jesus, make it stop:
More than 40 million people tuned in last week to listen to the speech from Palin, the 44-year-old, first-term governor whom McCain announced as his surprise vice presidential pick just days before. Since then, that basic script is all anyone has heard from her publicly, and her only interaction with the media was a brief conversation with a small group of reporters on her plane Monday — off the record at her handlers’ insistence.
Associated Press reporters were not on the plane, but an aide told the journalists on board that all Palin flights would be off the record unless the media were told otherwise. At least one reporter objected. Two people on the flight said the Palins greeted the media and they chatted about who had been to Alaska, but little else was said. . . .
So far, Palin has barely spoken with voters either. Since the convention, she and McCain have breezed through a Wisconsin ice cream shop, a New Mexico restaurant and a Missouri barbecue place, shaking hands with diners but not taking any questions. Photographers and television cameras have been allowed full view while reporters are typically kept too far away to ask questions or hear most of the conversations
This is infuriating and at the same time really, really fucking weird. There have been plenty of candidates for higher office in US history who have been recruited precisely because they could be counted on to say — figuratively speaking — nothing during the course of a campaign. But to have a candidate who literally says nothing except to recycle the applause lines from a speech written for a fill-in-the-blank vice presidential nominee a political eon before his or her selection…? I’m just not sure there are words caustic enough to describe what’s happening here. The fact that it’s worked so well so far is maddening.