16 seconds ago 2009-12-04T05:25:02-08:00
John McCain, when he was stil a media darling, affectionately called reporters "little jerks." But for Time's James Carney and Michael Scherer, he actually meant it, according to campaign manager Rick Davis.
National Review editor Rich Lowry pulled out some nuggets from an upcoming post-mortem on the McCain campaign.
On the "Time" magazine interview where McCain was non-responsive, leading journalists to conclude he was unhappy with his own campaign: “He didn’t want to do that interview, he thought they were being jerks.”
On putting Palin out in big, hostile network interviews at the beginning: “Our assumption was people would not let us release her on Fox or local TV.”
On the Couric interview, which Davis says Palin thought would be softer because she was being interviewed by a woman: “She was under the impression the Couric thing was going to be easier than it was. Everyone’s guard was down for the Couric interview.”
On the zaniness surrounding Randy Scheunemann. For those not following it, Steve Schmidt has told people he was fired the last week of the campaign; Scheunemann says he wasn't fired; others say Schmidt tried to fire him (at one point cutting off his e-mail) but was over-ruled by Davis. (Scheunemann's offense was writing an email to Bill Kristol defending Palin and criticizing the handling of her.): “Schmidt never fired anybody and there was no overruling. Steve Schmidt never spoke to Randy in that period of time. Randy Scheunemann was not fired. His e-mail was cut off and put back on.”
