Mark Hemingway: Who is the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
Mark Hemingway has a very interesting post over at NRO's blog concerning the fallout from yesterday's Vanity Fair smear article on Governor Palin. The post includes this email exchange between Randy Scheunemann and Bill Kristol:
What follows is the e-mail exchange with Bill Kristol that Schmidt rooted out, where Scheunemann speculates that the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband. Read from the bottom up:——- Original Message ——-
From: Randy Scheunemann
To: William Kristol
Sent: Sat Oct 25 19:44:44 2008
Subject: Re: who is this?
He is beyond pretentious - and knows something about divas, being married to one
Mw is arrogant, incompetent, annoying
——- Original Message ——-
From: William Kristol
To: Randy Scheunemann
Sent: Sat Oct 25 19:01:00 2008
Subject: Re: who is this?
right—very weird quote: “Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see
themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”
kind of pseudo-literary...doesn’t sound like Schmidt or Salter—is Mark W a little pretentious in this way
On 10/25/08 6:58 PM, "Randy Scheunemann" wrote:
My very educated guess is mark wallace defnding his wife
Knows king well, gives her deniability, spent several weeks through debate with her, not there now
Real piece of [EXPLETIVE]
——- Original Message ——-
From: William Kristol
To: Randy Scheunemann
Sent: Sat Oct 25 18:31:32 2008
Subject: Re: who is this?
Wallace?
Yesterday, Steve Schmidt claimed that Scheunemann was a campaign "leaker" because of his exchanges with Kristol. However, this is what Hemingway takes away from the email exchange above:
It's worth noting that Kristol didn't report anything from this exchange, that the major issue of the exchange was the identification of Mark — and not Nicolle — Wallace as someone spreading damaging information, and that there is nothing about Nicolle or the clothing controversy. Far from IDing Scheunemann as a leaker, this e-mail exchange simply has Scheunemann characterizing the Wallaces as petty and engaged in high-school cliquish-type behavior.
Hemingway also points to other evidence that Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace had a history of leaking false information to the press, so please read the entire post -- it is well worth your time.
Posts
60 comments:
We're dealing with the same "sources" who went after SP during the election cycle.
I think this rush to damn McCain is very distasteful. From what I can find, many of the sources damning McCain never liked him in the first place.
I've written about Wallace several times during the 2008 cycle at The Pink Flamingo. She was also behind the great wardrobe debate.
Wasn't she the one "responsible" for debate prep?
With assistance like Wallace who needed Obama?
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
I posted this on a another thread but I think it needs to be posted again.
I just saw this over @ Freep from a poster.
From the Statesman.com dated March 27, 2007 by W. Gardner Selby.
"Romney declares Texas finance committee"
"Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, seeking the GOP nod for president next year, aired his Texas statewide finance committee members today. We’ll guess there’s no overlap with the last Massachusetts fellow to run for president — U.S. Sen. John Kerry."
[
"Mark Wallace (Houston) - Wallace is president and CEO of Texas Children’s Hospital, the nation’s largest children’s hospital."
http://tinyurl.com/mhohak
Mark Wallace husband of Nicole Wallace.
Coincidence?
Schmidt went beyond that. He was very paranoid about Kristol's criticisms and got Randy fired or re-assigned. He painted randy as someone who got so close to the governor he was being disloyal to Mccain!
Forgot to add Mark Wallace to our lists. A timely reminder.
Reached by phone, a McCain campaign staffer intimately familiar with the situation said he didn’t want to speculate on what he might have motivated Schmidt and possibly others to denigrate Palin to the media, but notes, “What people were talking about was how deeply flawed Palin was, rather than how deeply flawed the handling of Palin was, which was [the leakers'] strategic goal.”
This is from the Hemingway article.
What do you make of this?? I have mixed feelings about what THIS McCain staffer is saying.
Hmmm, what they should be doing is calling out names till someone 'can't comment' on the subject.
jmr3...Very..Very Interesting.
juju, he is saying that the media and press were talking about Palin's "flaws" instead of the McCain campaign's ineptness
which was what was their goal
Bottom line, Sarah was set-up to fail. Nicole Wallace's fingerprints are all over the roll out, clothing-gate, Couric, Gibson, all of it.
When Sarah didn't fail spectacularly, they moved to an effort to destroy her for good.
They never counted on Sarah becoming the, for lack of a better term, icon she has become. In the end, that's what saved her.
Mark A. Wallace of Texas Childrens' Hospital here in Houston is a different Mark Wallace.
jim, I've read FR and someone says that the Texas chair Mark Wallace is different from Nicole's hubby. We need to confirm this either way.
Like they say in the "hood": the weave's about to hit the flo'.
I think Nicolle Wallace's husband has strong Bush ties.
The truth is coming out, and the leakers will be brought to account. It makes perfect sense - Nicole Wallace is plugged into the NY media scene through Couric, which explains the vitrol from people in that scene like Scarborough.
Never the less, the whole bunch of them apparently sabatoged their own candidate! They'll never work in GOP politics again.
The Wallaces and Schmidt are scum and shouldnever work for a republican ever. I would advise Hannity not to invite Nicole Wallace on his show ever unless he is going to confront her.
Ram,
By the way, the AP picked up your battle with Ramras.
JR,
Check this out. Someone over on Free Republic has found a Mark Wallace - Mitt Romney link.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/legislature/entries/2007/03/27/romney_declares_texas_finance_committee.html
Scroll down to near the bottom and you'll see that Mark Wallace was part of Romney's Texas Finance Committee.
I find this quite interesting.
wisetrog,
Yea I see that. Looks like it is a different Wallace.
As I pointed out in another thread, it's kind of ironic they ended the piece with yet ANOTHER unnamed source. Even if this person says things helpful to Palin, I still want to shake them and say "put your name on it!" Cowards.
My mom always said, "What happens in the dark comes to the light."
I have always thought Nicole had something to do with all this.
Tiffany
http://www.momsforsarahpalin.com
Isn't it great! Another woman attacking and trying to undermine another woman. Gahhh!
Brad Thor, bestelling author, said on Beck not to blame him and that he voted for Palin:)
http://hbhls.blogspot.com/2009/07/brad-thor-dont-blame-me-i-voted-for.html
sjk and DDJ,
Haven't you morons been banned?
JR,
That may be a false alarm. Now they are saying on Freep that it may be a different Mark Wallace. I'm not sure what to believe.
John McCain! .... If you are even one tenth the American Hero Sarah Palin so graciously speaks of, it is with your honor, at stake, to STOP THIS GARBAGE!
We have afforded you the opportunity to do so on many occasions since the election and you duck and run and hide with your miserable tail between your legs.
MAN UP! The Navy, your Country, your Family are looking!
SJK and DDoJ,
Why do you two morons keep going where you aren't wanted?
By the way, DDoJ, who is it that you want dead, disgraced or in jail? Threatening a sitting United States governor, are we?
Nat Hound;
I think quite honestly McCain's decision to choose Palin was based on 3 factors:
1)The inability of McCain or his team after several months of friendly overtures to convince the 'base' of the party to dive in hook, line and sinker with McCain, thus depriving McCain of needed volunteers and depressing his ability to fundraise sufficient for a general campaign
2)Along with #1 a rebuff by evangelicals and prominent pro-life Republicans that a pro-choice moderate would not be acceptable period! And even a moderate pro-life VP would not go over that well either
3)the millions of disaffected Hillary voters
I firmly believe that McCain for months knew if he could not solve #1 he would have to resort to his last option: choose a conservative for VP. I think he was prepared for that eventuality.
But then he thought-let's really go maverick and choose Lieberman and screw the conservatives who will vote for me anyway. Well he found out that option would have torn the party wide open and destroyed the convention and any chance he would have to win. As Schmidt said: "Tearing the GOP to bits was not an option."
So McCain, by Sunday had decided to choose a conservative but I really think if Obama had chosen Hillary instead of Biden McCain would probably have gone with Pawlenty or someone of that ilk.
But the disaffected millions of Hillary voters was too much of a morsel to pass up or ignore.
Sure Sarah Palin was vetted and sure Draft Sarah Palin for VP campaigned on a 24/7 basis for McCain to consider her but I don't believe Sarah was high on McCain's short list until he talked it over with his wife and then came to the conclusion that Obama, as a Messiah, and the first potential black POTUS, was formidable and the MSM made him more so and only by going outside the box to diminish Obama's WOW advantage could he at least have a chance to compete. So with all these factors brought into play he finally chose Sarah Palin.
But not in his wildest imagination did McCain, Cindy or McCain's handlers ever believe that she would turn into a superstar poltician and threaten to destroy the RINO hold on the GOP and bring on with that the possible resurrection of Reagan conservatism.
"Damn you maverick" has been heard constantly for months through the corridors of the House and Senate and amongst the patrons at the Beltway and NY cocktail parties.
Techno said,
"But not in his wildest imagination did McCain, Cindy or McCain's handlers ever believe that she would turn into a superstar poltician and threaten to destroy the RINO hold on the GOP and bring on with that the possible resurrection of Reagan conservatism."
===========
Touche!
Techno:
I think it goes a step further. The McCain insiders realized they were losing control of their own campaign, it was quickly becoming the Sarah Palin show featuring John McCain. They could not be a party to bringing this no one from no place into power. Ergo, she had to be destroyed and quickly. Hence, Operation Sabotage.
These McCain staffers have damned themselves. They are radiocactive now.
Wallace is Willards defacto plant in the McCain campaign. She is the saboteur, along with Schmidt. I have never seen a campaign so set on losing. McCain & his people are who lost this campaign. Now they try to climb out of the ashes, seeing that Palin's popularity has not been tarnished by their jihad on her character.
Palin should stay out of this campaign banter and let them all devour themselves. She's the only one who came out of this whole '08 campaign with any honor & integrity.
I wonder if Palin wishes she had never accepted the VP nomination?
Isn't it obvious to everyone here..the Wallace's are STRONG supporters of Mitt Romney, Mittens has been all over TV today talking about the Obama Administration, they did a poll a few days ago, Sarah is more popular then Mitt, then BAM, here comes this article, the Romney people are scared that Sarah can beat him in 2012, that is why they are doing this. And as far as McCain goes, he has been a, excuse my language "Pussy" for months now, he never defends Sarah because he never wanted to win the election in the first place, he just wanted someone to be the scapegoat when they lost. From Day 1 McCain wanted to lose, he knew he would lose, and didn't think Sarah would captivate the party like she did, he hated that she took the spotlight away from him, thus this is why he doesn't back her up on anything
There's a school of thought that McCain was not in control of his own campaign and all he knew was what the saboteurs were telling him. It may not be his fault, believe it or not.
What a piece of Schmidt.
portlandon:
Never forget the comment that Schmidt made at the University of Delaware a month ago that he knew the campaign was lost and told McCain so soon after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on Sept. 16.
I'm curious why there is not more of an examination of the McCain's campaign's decisions henceforth through that prism including Sarah's interviews with Gibson and Couric, Sarah going rogue perhaps because of Schmidt's pessimism, McCain's decision not to focus on Jeremiah Wright and McCain claiming that America need not be frightened of an Obama presidency.
I don't think this came from the McCain staff at all.
I think this is something ENTIRELY different. And I have a good feeling of where... give me time.
Let's give credit WHERE credit IS DUE, and that is Adam Brickley and his Palinforvp.blogspot.com.
Noooooooooo way would Palin have been picked by McCain (even with the above considerations) without the spadework of Brickley and his bloggers -- and the persuasive persuasive persuasive arguments there.
That's truly the amazing grassroots story behind Palin.
And, yes, it seems quite clear that once picked, Palin WAS SABOTAGED FROM WITHIN CAMP MCCAIN. This explains what all us Early Palinistas were amazed at, that being, McCain was utterly blowing it, by the way they were handling/constraining Palin -- we, who knew her well, all asked why won't McCain Camp simply let Sarah be Sarah, the Sarah we all knew!?!
But also, remember that had it not been for McCain, we would not have Palin now in a position to take over the GOP and win back the nation from the Socialists.
And, of course, Mitt Romney's hands are all over this "bring down Sarah" movement -- both before and now after the election.
Nat Hound:
And this takes me back to Schmidt's assertion that on Sept. 16, the day of the Lehman collapse the he knew the campaign was doomed and told McCain so.
I guess the $64 question is why did Mccain keep Schmidt on and along with that did Sarah know that Schmidt felt that way which may have caused her to 'go rogue'?
Techno:
I keep going back to that weird week that they parked Sarah in Philadelphia, letting her leave her hotel to get a sandwich, go for a run, appear at some bar, and go to a pre-season hockey game. What was that?
Ted:
I agree with everything you wrote.
But the one thing that must not be overlooked is the strategy employed by the McCain campaign after Schmidt determined that McCain could not win and told him so.
Remember McCain was the candidate; he decided not use Wright, not to go after Ayres and Dohrn more vigorously and to claim that Americans had nothing to be frightened of with Obama as POTUS and of course his poor debate performances in the first two debates did not help his cause.
I don't think McCain was an innocent bystander. And finally he made the decision to keep Schmidt. That's like a GM keeping his head coach, with the latter being convinced before the season starts that the team will have a losing season.
LOL latinchic!!!
i agree!
this is only the beginning.
somewhere mccain is wading.
And here's a message to Mitt Romney:
STOP IT!!
STOP WORKING TO BRING DOWN SARAH PALIN!!
The, what is now, VAST VAST (AND GROWING VASTER) SARAH ARMY will never forgive or forget what you have done and are doing.
For the good of the nation, we need a strong GOP united behind SARAH PALIN! (and as I say, without us Palinistas, you have NO CHANCE of winning anything)
There is no way Governor Palin was the weak link in that loser campaign.
She started off with a bang in Dayton, Ohio.
Creamed the whole idea of Senator Obama with her RNC speech, and built up Senator McCain in that
speech too.
She was dynamite on the campaign trail, absolutely a rock star, talking up Senator McCain all along the way.
She did the Gibson interview on the day of her son's deployment to Iraq and held her own.
She gave Katie Couric a long interiview, and realized Katie Couric was not being fair in any way, and wanted to cut it off.
She demolished Senator Joe Biden in the debate.
She put herself up for some self-deprecating humor on SNL.
She pushed and pushed and pushed through to November 4,2008. She gave her everything for McCain and his bozos. Actually, she gave everything to try to save America from what Obama is.
The McCain campaign "experts" blew it, big time.
"Experts" did not get her from the start, did not want to get her, then resented her for being her.
To continue on with the Couric interview, even when the candidate herself saw the bias of the interviewer, was a huge mistake.
To not have her give that Iran speech, in some appropriate venue after being shut out of the U.N. spot was shameful.
To not take the momentum she provided the campaign after her RNC speech was cluelessness.
To not realize the weight of saying goodbye to her son, and then sitting down for her first major interview was heartless.
To not listen to her about being able to run every day, was tone deaf or willful meanness.
It is an upside down world, we live in.
upinak
Do you think this is AK related?
I was thinking it had to be McCain or Romney people.
Nat Hound:
I thought the same thing at the time. But that was shortly after the Couric interview.
I knew she was back when I watched a you tube of her in that Philly bar dressed in everyday garb thanking the patrons for their support and again exuding the energy and enthusiasm that Sarah is known for.
Did you think that in the Couric interview that Sarah appeared tired, run-down, exhausted or lethargic? I've watched it many times. Not before or since have I seen 'that Sarah'. It may have been a day that all the forces of the mental pressure of the campaign, living out of a suitcase for 3 weeks straight and low biorhythms conspired against her.
Pretty interesting that Sarah hasn't said a word the last few days and yet all these people can't keep squabbling over little ol' her. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this.
Techno:
I think you have it backwards, that business in Philadelphia was the week between St. Paul and the Gibson interview.
Bottom line on Gibson and Couric interviews, NEVER NEVER NEVER should a candidate give other than a LIVE UNEDITED INTERVIEW!
I'm certain that if those interviews were left in full unedited form, Palin WOULD HAVE LOOKED SUPREB.
That she was set-up for the pre-taped edited form WAS ONE OF THE DECISIONS OF SABOTAGE BY MCCAIN'S CAMPAIGN PEOPLE.
Correction, mever should a GOP candidate give other than a live unedited interview.
With the Dems (Obama), the MSM will only edite to make the candidate look better!
Tammy Bruce has an AWESOME article up about the McCain camp's trashing of Palin, yet they praise Sandford?
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/01/mccain-camp-praising-sanford-trashing-palin/
Nat Hound:
With all due respect, it was at the end of September during the middle of the financial meltdown with McCain back in Washington.
Check it out on the Internet. It was sandwiched a week before her debate on October 2nd and right after the Couric interview a few days before Sept 24-25.
I remember there was a rally in the first or second week, it may have been in Ohio, where Obama was holding a rally, some 45 miles away, and all the networks shifted
all their coverage from Obama?Biden toMcCain/Palin.That had to be considered a great indignity.
What I find so bleepin frustrating is because the "sources" are unnamed they could be the same person, or handful. Or heck they could be a flat out fake source. How do you fight back against anonymous sources.
(Writing has never been my strong suit, that credit goes that to the good guys at C4P so please accept my apologies for incorrect grammars punctuations, it is the substance of what I write which should be considered. Thank you)
Sarah was set up from the start to take the fall at the end. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I have believed so from soon after the election and this VF article just confirmed by suspicion.
By August 2008 it was pretty clear Obama was going to win the election. For starters Obama had the media in the tank, the republican parties and Bush numbers were way below a genuine comeback and Obama was solidly ahead in all the polls and no matter what McCain never seemed to be able to get ahead. Other than a miracle there was pretty much no way for McCain and his people to pull it off.
Of course at the time we all believed that a McCain victory is still plausible, but we can all admit now that it was more wishful thinking. We know it, the party know it and McCain and his team know it.
Polls with head on matches between Obama Biden and any one of the VP candidates on McCain’s short list had Obama beating McCain. It is safe to say that by that time McCain and his team were already, if not planning, examining their exit strategy and searching for the scapegoat.
Either the other candidates on the short list bailed out and didn’t even want the job, or the McCain team simply didn’t want to directly destroy a future presidential hopeful for fear it would back fire or to protect a future campaign job.
There was no way to know what the public response to her announcement would be but I don’t believe anyone even slightly predicted the excitement she was going to awake among republicans and conservatives in particular.
McCain’s strongest weapon against Obama was Obama’s inexperience and with McCain’s age he must of known that by selecting Palin he would be throwing away his strongest argument .
So why pick her?
At the time Sarah Palin was a relatively unknown person, a former beauty queen contestant and sports reporter. Governor of the remote state of Alaska and as far as conventional wisdom at the time would have had it was a women with no presidential aspirations.
The inner circle plan was simple: Being the most popular governor in the nation with a record of taking on her on party, a mother of five with a special needs child she would be an easy sell on why she was picked, on the other hand being relatively unknown and inexperienced, she is bound to make a mistake somewhere along the line we’ll over blow it and we’ll blame her for our loss. No, I don’t believe that at the time the plan was to destroy her completely but being that she is so unknown and outside the beltway the general public will simple accept that this inexperienced governor messed it up. She would go back to her job in Alaska in everybody walks away clean.
Enter Sarah!
The excitement was overwhelming and McCain actually came ahead in the polls. The McCain camp caught off guard started to think that maybe they accidentally made a perfect choice things started to look good and after her knockout convention speech everyone in the camp actually started to take publicly claim credit for her selection. The unanimous decision to keep her away from the press was made to avoid her making that mistake that had originally hoped she will do.
After the financial collapse where things started going sour again and reality kicked that its over. The McCain camp went in to overdrive to get the original plan in place to make Sarah the scapegoat. But they missed one thing as Sarah said it herself she wasn’t doing this for naught and had no intention of being a punching bag. She stood up for what she believed in and expected to be treated with respect and had no intention of being the fall guy. Now this isn’t what the camp expected from this “timid” beauty queen from Alaska. There was only one option shut her up, destroy her good and ruin her so bad that no one would ever take her serious.
We all know what followed.
Sheya: Great post.
Good thread guys and gals!
I agree that Adam Brickley deserves a lot of credit for the Palin VP choice, but the Weekly Standard cruise and Barnes' write up that followed is what really put her on the national map.
Seriously, I wanted to throw something at the screen during Today's roundtable on Special Report. They're giving Romney credit on healthcare, I would only as an ironic lesson on what not to do. Or on budgetary issues, (hello McFly) Krauthammer (who I generally
respect a lot); was verydismissive
of her, so much so that Fred had to walk him back, But citing Whitman, Christie, et al; who haven't barely made it past the primary.
You can't run on platitudes,m who have we had in office for the last 5 1/2 months. Who warned of these circumstance we've been going through
Narciso.
Me too. I was rather surprised at Krauthammer he usually sticks up for Sarah. He has written many articles about her accomplishments and only last week he talked about her accomplishment with the pipeline and her trip abroad. Though he did agree she has time. I loved it when Kelly finished off – with her cute smile - that she still has a lot of time.
Either Schmidt, Wallace or one of their cronies has supplied CBS with some interanl memos to further trash Gov. Palin.
The result is a CBS hit piece:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/01/politics/main5128672.shtml
They are literally trying to destroy Sarah Palin, and their media allies are only too willing to cooperate.
I suspect Schmidt and Wallace teamed up on this one. She's the one with all the connections at CBS.
- JP
Pffft. Sorry, CBS, but that pathetic piece makes Schmidt look worse than Palin.
jimr3, that's a different Mark Wallace. The Texas Wallace who;s on Romney's team is Mark A. Wallace. He's CEO of Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Nicole's hubby is Mark D. Wallace from Florida.
- JP
I wrote this in another thread, but it's apropos here:
hopefully the people leaking internal campaign emails of a candidate have moved on to new careers because they will NEVER work as a campaign operative/adviser again. That is, unless, the person is leaking these emails at the behest of a new "employer"/candidate to whom they have pledged allegiance.
3 guesses and the first 2 don't count.
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