Anita Dunn - Loves Mao Tse Tung, Dislikes Fox News....and Governor Palin?

Time Magazine, official mouthpiece of the Obama administration, has an excerpt from “The Audacity to Win” by David Plouffe who was a key figure in Obama’s 2008 campaign. It’s an interesting behind the scenes glimpse into what has to be acknowledged as one of the most successful sales campaigns in marketing history. But what caught my eye was a fascinating factoid buried deep in the section describing how Plouffe and Co. reacted to McCain's selection of Governor Palin as his running mate.

Palin was a bolt of lightning, a true surprise. She was such a long shot, I didn't even have her research file on my computer, as I did for the likely McCain picks. I started Googling her, refreshing my memory while I waited for our research to be sent.

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On our 6:00 a.m. conference call, [campaign adviser] Anita Dunn, who had worked against Palin in Alaska in the 2006 governor's race, warned us that she was a formidable political talent — clearly not up to this moment, she assured us, but bound to be a compelling player and a real headliner in the weeks ahead.

Yes – that Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, enemy of Fox News and admirer of Mao Tse Tung. Dunn, who started out working for President Carter’s chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, is regarded by Democrats as one of the their most highly experienced strategists. That’s why David Axelrod brought her into the Obama campaign team. It turns out that she also advised Tony Knowles in the 2006 Alaska Gubernatorial campaign.

"All of you on this call should watch video of her debates and speeches," Dunn counseled. "The substance is thin, but she's a very able performer. And her story is out of Hollywood. She'll be a phenomenon for a while."

Actually she also advised Knowles in his 2004 Senate bid so she clearly has close links with Alaska. In fact soon after the GOP convention she was on TV dissing the governors reformist credentials.

It’s quite clear that the Obama team was thrown into disarray by the Palin pick because over the next few weeks they threw every resource into undermining her credibility. Indeed at times it was as if she was Obama’s presidential opponent, rather than McCain.

The anti-Palin campaign operated, as we know, on two levels. Publicly one theme was “inexperience” though, given Obama’s shallow CV, this held some risk. Another was questioning the governor’s reformist/ethical credentials which Dunn herself laughably attempted just a few days after the nomination.

It was laughable not just because Obama had never aligned himself with any project that attempted to clean up the seedy politics of Chicago/Cook County but, as Michelle Malkin pointed out, Dunn herself had been very close to Tom Daschle.

Democratic media consultant Dunn’s claim to fame is her decade-long service as chief strategist for disgraced Democrat and former Senate Majority Leader-turned-health care lobbyist Tom Daschle. She was in the thick of his failed re-election campaign as Daschle asserted a bogus property-tax homestead exemption claim on his $1.9 million D.C. mansion – which he listed as his primary residence despite voting in South Dakota and claiming it as his primary residence in order to run for re-election. And Dunn was with Daschle during the years he failed to pay gobs of taxes on a luxury car and driver provided to him by crony donor Leo Hindery, Jr.

The public strategy was risky because of the possibility of backfire if anyone chose to delve too deeply into the past of Obama and his associates. However Axelrod and Co. were confident that a supine press and TV were too far in the tank for the Obama myth to afford any buyer’s remorse by asking questions. But the media were fascinated by a political figure who emerged from nowhere and proceeded to suck the oxygen out of Obama’s elegantly stage managed coronation at the Democrat convention. The media needed meat – and Team Obama had a private strategy to feed the beast.

While the public discourse remained civilised and respectful surrogates like HuffPo and Kos were used to orchestrate a tsunami of lies, distortions and rumours that were directed not so much at the governor’s politics but at her and her family. The media, using weasels words like “claimed” and “alleged”, eagerly climbed aboard and the bulk of the GOP establishment, not at all comfortable with a woman who had defied and destroyed key party figures in Alaska, simply left her to deal with it herself.

Almost all of the misinformation about Governor Palin came from Alaska, partly from local Democrats like Kim Elton (of Troopergate fame) and from “progressive” bloggers. Publicly, of course, there were no Team Obama fingerprints to be found on these slanders but it beggars belief to assume that these were all spontaneous outpourings from concerned citizens. Some might suggest a whiff of orchestration, and who else better to help connect the dots than someone closely involved with Alaskan Democrats since at least 2004 – someone like Anita Dunn. Michelle Malkin also noted this about Anita.

Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, a Washington, D.C. corporate lawyer who served as general counsel for Obama for America. It was Bauer who lobbied the Justice Department unsuccessfully last fall to pursue a criminal probe of American Issues Project (AIP), an independent group that sought to run an ad spotlighting Obama’s ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

It was Bauer who attempted to sic the DOJ on GOP donor Harold Simmons and sought his prosecution for funding the ad. It was Bauer who tried to bully television stations across the country to compel them to pull the spot. All on Barack Obama’s behalf.

Only conjecture, of course – but even more curious is the fact that the campaign of slander and misinformation continued after the election, spearheaded by Jesse Griffin of Immoral Minority. Dan Riehl raised some very important questions about Mr Griffin – unfortunately that part of Todd Purdum’s well balanced Vanity Fair article on Governor Palin was mysteriously mislaid by the printers. But the intrepid "journalists" at the Anchorage Daily News must be planning an in depth analysis of the Jesse Griffin affair for publication sometime in... 2028?

The question is, I suppose, did Anita Dunn have anything to do with the anti-Palin campaign? We just don’t know. Certainly on a political level Anita must still see her as a threat to be neutralised. But there might also be a personal motive. After all, when you are a highly regarded and seasoned strategist it must have been galling to see your candidate defeated in the 2006 gubernatorial election by somebody like this.

In some ways it’s easier to count those who aren’t in Palin’s inner circle than those who are. Before appearing on the GOP presidential ticket, Palin often relied mainly on grassroots support to propel her political efforts.

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Palin’s campaign manager for her gubernatorial race was one of her hometown friends, Kris Perry. Other people playing lead roles in the campaign included middle-school friends and work acquaintances