From the "Alaska Dispatch"

McCain not going quietly under Palin’s bus


October 27, 2008
By Amanda Coyne
Much is being made of the McCain campaign’s mishandling of Sarah Palin, and of Palin’s recent rebellion in the face of such mishandling.

First, she challenged McCain’s decision to pull out of Michigan. Then, in an interview with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, she said that McCain would support the 2008 Republican Party platform, which opposes stem cell research and supports a constitutional amendment banning abortions with no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. The problem: McCain supports stem-cell research and opposes a constitutional amendment that does not make exceptions for cases of rape and incest.

On the stump yesterday, she talked about her wardrobe, which she wasn’t supposed to do. She dissed robo calls while McCain was defending them, had an impromptu press conference, and is, according to a CNN story, generally playing the part of a “diva.”
All of this leads many to conclude that Palin is setting herself up to blame the McCain camp in the face of a big loss.

In the coming weeks, many in Alaska won’t be surprised if Palin starts to subtly allude to those “good ol’ boys” who are running McCain’s campaign; the ones who made her wear fancy clothes and tarnished her image by keeping her from the press. It’s a familiar Palin-refrain.
As the conservative Voice of the Times columnist Paul Jenkins put it in a column about Palin: “She is an opportunist always looking for buses with lots of room underneath, lots of room for all the political bodies.”

But Palin is working with professionals now who will not go quietly under that good bus, and they seem to be prepping for a fight. In addition to the diva comment, the CNN story cited two sources inside the campaign who defended her handling. They said that she simply was not ready to meet the press. “Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic,” one CNN source said. The other source said it was “hardest” to get her “up to speed than any candidate in history.”