Over the weekend, one longtime Republican decided he’d been quiet long enough. Steve Schmidt, a strategist who managed John McCain’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2008, took to Twitter, where he proceeded to unleash hell upon Meghan McCain, who was already smarting from surreally lousy hardcover book sales. Then he came for his old boss’ notorious running mate.
2/ Campaign and you are the Vice Presidential candidate. It is true that you can take that plane wherever you want but you should have a plan after that because it’s my gas card” Nicolle Wallace and I were the two people who said NO.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) May 8, 2022
It’s no secret that Schmidt and Sarah Palin did not get along. Their contentious relationship was dramatized in the campaign trail book Game Change as well as the HBO movie made from it, in which the two were played by Woody Harrelson and Julianne Moore. But Schmidt decided that while he was torching John McCain’s daughter — whom he accused of being a “bully” whose behavior on her father’s campaign trail “appalled” the late politician — he’d go after Palin as well.
“When the campaign ended I refused to let Sarah Palin speak,” Schmidt tweeted about election night 2008. “I placed the phone call to Barack Obama for the concession and did everything I could to make sure a beautiful speech wasn’t disgraced by the nut ball from Alaska.”
You can watch how the Game Change film depicted that scene.
Did you know that @WoodyHarrelson played @SteveSchmidtSES in the 2012 movie “Game Change?” The plot revolved around the McCain campaign and @SarahPalinUSA. Here is a clip of Steve “Woody” Schmidt savagely shredding Palin: pic.twitter.com/5hRVwIj4Ak
— Tim Hooks (@LincolnWatchman) February 6, 2021
He also saw a depressing, disturbing shift in the GOP. “Palin understood the party of personal responsibility was dead and replaced by a whining victim cult of losers who routinely lied and blamed others for their failings,” he wrote. “Palin went on the attack after the campaign. You see, it wasn’t that she was ignorant and unprepared. It wasn’t that she was a pathological liar who became intoxicated by fame and grievance. She was a victim!”
8/ John McCain’s last words to Palin on election night were a warning. He said don’t be pulled in “by the extremists like Limbaugh” It was too late and he knew it. He could have confronted it. He did not. @MeghanMcCain
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) May 8, 2022
He added: “John McCain’s last words to Palin on election night were a warning,” the former advisor wrote. “He said don’t be pulled in ‘by the extremists like Limbaugh.’ It was too late and he knew it.”
The next day, Schmidt doubled down when confronted by Breitbart News editor-at-large Rebecca Mansour, calling Palin “an absolutely degenerate liar. Pathological. Unfit. Unwell. She’s a quitter and a buffoon who has no business ever holding a position of public trust, ever. Not even as a crossing guard. Nothing.” Schmidt then told Mansour, “You are nuts also.”
Please. She is an absolutely degenerate liar. Pathological. Unfit. Unwell. She’s a quitter and a buffoon who has no business ever holding a position of public trust, ever. Not even as a crossing guard. Nothing. You are nuts also https://t.co/9JnIi00Bw4
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) May 8, 2022
Alas, even though Schmidt never liked Sarah Palin, the campaign he ran had opened Pandora’s Box. Not only had an obscure governor been turned into a household name, she inspired untold clones, even “pathological” and “unwell” than her. Though not many of them have openly scoured about New York City while sick with COVID.
(Via Insider)