A former McCain senior adviser blasted former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s endorsement of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump as “just classless,” telling Politico’s Ben Schreckinger that McCain’s vice presidential running mate is “one of America’s most astounding morons.”
Schreckinger reports:
“It’s just classless,” said a former senior adviser to McCain of the endorsement, predicting it would backfire. “It’s undermining to a key Trump message which is one of competency. What Trump has said is that he’s going to hire the very best people and bring in men of Carl Icahn’s ilk … and he’s appearing with someone who’s viewed as one of America’s most astounding morons.”
Palin’s endorsement of Trump follows a public dispute between the New York real estate tycoon and the Arizona senator who accused Trump of “firing up the crazies” after Trump held a campaign rally in Phoenix with supporters who comprise McCain’s own constituents. Trump fired back by dismissing McCain’s status as a war hero and calling out McCain’s disparagement of thousands of Arizonans as “crazies.”
Palin electrified the GOP base after being tapped as McCain’s running mate in 2008. As shown in the documentary “The Undefeated” by Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, Palin’s addition to the McCain ticket gave the lackluster McCain campaign their only lead in the polls against Barack Obama until the financial crisis conclusively brought any hope of a GOP victory to an end. McCain’s decision to “suspend” his campaign following the financial meltdown sent his poll numbers into a nosedive that they never recovered from.
After the 2008 election, the GOP establishment consultants that comprised McCain’s senior campaign staff quickly turned on Palin, shifting the blame for the campaign’s failure on Palin rather than on the consultants who devised McCain’s strategy to deal with the financial crisis.
In spite of the behavior of McCain’s staffers, Palin has maintained her loyalty to her former running mate, who has sought her help in shoring up his conservative base in Arizona. Palin’s endorsement of McCain’s 2010 Senate re-election allowed him to stave off a conservative primary challenger.
McCain, who is up for re-election again this year, is facing another conservative primary challenger in former Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward, who in a poll last November was beating McCain among Republican voters by a 9-point margin.
As Breitbart’s Michelle Moons reported:
McCain’s actions calling conservatives “whacko birds” and “crazies” was called out among the PAC’s grievances against the over three-decade D.C. insider.
In January 2014 McCain’s own party in Arizona censured the Senator for excessive liberal voting including support for the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan. At the time of the Arizona State Committeemen meeting censure of the Senator, six of the state’s fifteen county parties had censured McCain.
Palin has not yet endorsed anyone in the Arizona senate race this year.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/20/mccain-senior-staffer-palin-one-of-americas-most-astounding-morons-endorsement-just-classless/
