David Plouffe announces “Beat Palin’s Book for a Day”, targeting tomorrow.
If you haven’t picked up Plouffe’s book, he talks about the campaign, but also the “strategy and tactics” that led to Obama’s “improbable” win.
Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue tour is setting bookstores to panic, due to the huge crowds she’s attracting, something Plouffe doesn’t have to worry about, thus he turns to a campaign to inspire a little love to come his way. More power to him.
As Palin’s tour de force fall continued over the weekend at the Gridiron dinner. Great material, even if she won’t get any credit. After all, she is Sarah Palin.
Good evening. It’s great to be in Washington. I am loving the weather [it was snowing]. I braved the elements and went out for a jog! Or, as Newsweek calls it, a cover-shoot. I feel so at home here in DC. I can see the Russian Embassy from my hotel room!
It’s a privilege to be here tonight at the Washington DC Barnes & Noble. Tonight, I’ll be reading excerpts from my new book. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? “Going Rogue.”
Yukon wasn’t sure if I’d go with that title and somebody suggested I follow the East Coast self-help trend and go with, “How To Look Like A Million Bucks…For Only 150 Grand.” …
There has been a lot of fuss over fact checking Sarah’s book, setting off Andrew Sullivan on another tear about Trig. But is anyone fact checking Plouffe’s book? Now, I know it’s uncomfortable, because you can’t do this without dredging up the 2008 primaries, but let’s just say that you won’t find the “strategy and tactics” Plouffe used against Hillary Clinton within the pages of his new book. As a reminder, from an old post by my friend Peter Daou, though I could just as easily quote from one of my own:
MYTH: Barack Obama is running a positive campaign that will unite Americans.
FACT: Barack Obama and his advisers have conducted a divisive “full assault” on Hillary’s character.
While talking a lot about the politics of hope, change and unity, Sen. Obama and his campaign have been conducting a relentless and singularly personal assault on Hillary’s character. They have blanketed big states with false negative mailers and radio ads and have described Hillary and her campaign as “disingenuous,” “divisive,” “untruthful,” “dishonest,” “polarizing,” “calculating,” “saying whatever it takes to win,” “attempting to deceive the American people,” “one of the most secretive in America,” “deliberately misleading,” “literally willing to do anything to win,” and “playing politics with war.”
This “full assault” on Hillary’s integrity and character has reached a new peak since Hillary’s victories on March 4th. One of Sen. Obama’s top surrogates equated President Clinton with Joe McCarthy; another called Hillary a “monster;” and his campaign manager held an angry conference call claiming that Hillary is “deeply flawed” and has “character issues.” That’s neither unifying nor hopeful. If Sen. Obama really is the prohibitive favorite some say he is, these negative attacks make absolutely no sense. Why would a frontrunner seek to attack and divide? If Sen. Obama can’t unify Democrats in a primary, how can he unify Americans in a general election?
Water under the bridge finally and for sure, but someone needs to tell me why Palin gets proofed, while Plouffe gets a pass to rewrite primary history.
As for Mr. Plouffe’s book battle, I’d be rooting for him if he hadn’t resorted to Palin-esque editing of his own, at least as far as I can tell, as I did a speed read of it looking for the strategy that took Hillary down, not finding it anywhere. It would have been a lot more interesting if he’d just said it as it happened instead of offering a version that anyone fighting in the trenches on Hillary’s side would be hard pressed to recognize.
All’s fair in political warfare, so why omit the Machiavellian brilliance on Obama’s side, which was orchestrated by David Plouffe, among others?
Fantasy is the stuff of which political legends are concocted built, no matter what side is doing the writing.
They say those that are victorious write the history that’s remembered. I don’t find it surprising that no one is willing to speak of what transpired in 2008 as it would not reflect very well on certain candidates, political parties or elected officials. The Texas two step hubris being the perfect example.
Mr. Plouffe sounds petty. Have to follow up and see how those much talked about “organizing techniques” worked on this little exercise. Didn’t work so well in Virginia and New Jersey. Another aspect of the 2008 election is that there was elements of and “event” or a “moment” Should be interesting in following the upcoming elections (2010 and 2012). Perhaps President Obama is like, you know, soooo 2008.
Big difference in that fact checking on Palin’s book amounted in most cases to things that were either lies or clearly made up. Totally objective stuff. Like making herself out to be a player in the Exxon Valdez settlement, when in reality, as the plaintiff’s lawyer puts it best:
“That is the most cockamamie bullshit,” said Dave Oesting of Anchorage, the lead plaintiff attorney in the private litigants’ civil case against Exxon. “She didn’t have a damn thing to do with it, and she didn’t know what it was about.”
The woman lies seamlessly and whenever she wants. From day one on the campaign she lied, re-writes history completely.
She’s an ignorant liar with a huge following of people who are actually more ignorant than she is. A danger to any society. The saving grace is she has skeletons in her closet so if she does run she might have to answer questions about things like re-filing taxes because she charged the state for her kids personal travel. Looking forward to seeing her twist in the wind if she does run.
I guess one way to put it is she’s like a lot of politicans, only most can’t get away with that amount of lying.
Now if it was a Hillary staffer or, heck, even HC herself, writing a book then I don’t think we’d hear a peep out of Ms. Taylor if it wasn’t scrutinized or if it “rewrote” history a little, now would we?
It’s been a long time since I’ve been on this site I once loved, but you are STILL all things Hillary aren’t you?? If she had indeed won the primary and the presidency we all know her stuff wouldn’t stink. We get it, we get it. All hail Hillary.
What happened to that independent blogger I used to love…
@chazmonk I think your comments are unfounded. Taylor has long championed the Obama Administration, commending it when it does good and pointing out its mistakes when it makes them. Perhaps you would know that if you read the blog regularly.
Taylor makes a valid point in this blog post. Nobody says anything because Plouffe isn’t Sarah Palin. He isn’t at the forefront of politics and isn’t a politician. Therefore, we don’t fact check him. That and the fact that he engineered Obama’s campaign. We often like to look at the end result and not the whole campaign. I believe that was her point.
Thanks Taylor for another great post! I enjoy reading them everyday (even if I don’t comment that often).
chazmonk, it shows that you don’t spend any time here. As a dyed in the wool HRC supporter and fanatical Obama opponent during the primary I can say without hesitation Ms. Marsh has concistently been THE most objective Politicol Pundent I have had the pleasure of becoming aware of. She supported HRC and honestly reported on the shenanigans of the Obama campaign and MSM but also was quick to point out when HRC’s campaign screwed up or was inconsistant. Once the primary was over and Obama had the nomination she supported the Democratic Candidate.
chazomonk – I think your comments are unfair to Taylor and indirectly to those of us who have been around for a long time. As someone who supported HRC I was always glad when Taylor or any of the pro HRC supporters were able to point out her inconsistencies and at times exaggerations. If Taylor wasn’t the objective observer/writer of the politics of our day I’d have been long gone from this site.
As to Sarah Palin – I’m fascinated by her appeal as she has no appeal for me. I tend toward the nerdy/geeky/intellectually curious type of person, all of which Ms. Palin lacks and what I find so appealing in SOS Clinton. I do wonder about Ms. Palin’s supporters though. What is it that they see in this woman? Would they honestly trust her to run any government, let alone the US government? What do they find in her that instills confidence and trust, other than she’s pretty good at riling up a crowd and their negativity towards all issues that relate to the good of all the people of this country?
chazmonk says:
07 December 2009 at 8:54 pm
As a big proponent of All’s Fair In Political War, I was sincerely disappointed that in my speed read of Plouffe’s book, especially since he’s not in the White House, that he didn’t delineate how the Obama camp used the Rove playbook against Hillary. No gender tip toeing because she was a woman, as they knew it would take everything they had to beat her. Little did the Obama camp know that Hillary’s own people would actually beat her for him!
It’s also interesting that you aren’t interested in why Plouffe is getting a pass while Sarah Palin’s book is getting picked apart, which was actually the crux of the post.