THE 'GAME CHANGE' BLAME GAME

H. N. Burdett

The HBO presentation of "Game Change" probably will not change the thinking of those who write and produce docu-dramas hereafter, but it should.

In preparation for watching it, I re-read the chapters of the book on which the movie focused. I was impressed by how faithful the film was to the 2008 presidential campaign page-turner by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, among the best of that genre.

The television version is necessarily limited in scope and the behind-the-scenes John McCain-Sarah Palin portion of the Heilemann-Halperin opus was dramatized to near perfection. One critic has correctly noted that the tranformative campaign of four years ago could have become an eminently watchable mini-series. The book covers the runs for the Democratic presidential nomination that year by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as the McCain-Palin saga.

Both Palin and McCain have dismissed the television production without actually viewing it, which can only mean that they were less than thrilled with the book on which it was based. That's too bad because Ed Harris's portrayal of McCain, if anything, enhances the senator's image as a politician who flatly refuses to play mudball politics. And Julianne Moore, in the role of Palin, at times poignantly reveals a side of Palin that would give pause to at least a few entrenched liberal Democrats who see the erstwhile Alaska governor as the personification of everything they detest.

Though no self-respecting progressive watching "Game Change" could be converted to Palin's politics, there might be at least a dollop of empathy for her as a human being going through emotions shared by all of those who have ever confronted a challenge that was simply over their heads.

Palin is revealed in both the book and the movie as a successful Alaska politician who was clearly out of her depth once she was elevated to the national stage. Stephen Schmidt, the senior McCain campaign strategist played by Woody Harrelson, freely admits that the Palin vetting process was shoddy at best. Nicolle Wallace, Palin's "handler" during the campaign, was understandably frustrated and ultimately distraught in feeling that Palin was a detached prima donna.

But both Schmidt and Wallace also seem to be shifting the entire blame, which in reality both shared, to those who checked out Palin and gave her their enthusiastic approval. Though not mentioned in either the book or the movie, the latter included neo-conservative intellectuals William Kristol and Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, who went up to Juneau to meet Palin personally. My guess is that they came back believing they could easily mold and manipulate her into a spirited advocate for their fatally-flawed foreign policy views. That Kristol and Barnes later turned their spineless backs on the Alaska governor speaks volumes about their paltry principles, something McCain, a congenital hawk, would never have done and indeed did not.

In the end, McCain's feeling completely comfortable with Palin was what led to the decision that ultimately sank any hope at all he had of winning the presidency. Whatever else one might feel about the Arizona senator, there can be no disagreement regarding his unwavering loyalty, which is generally lauded as a commendably courageous trait but can also be a crippling weakness.

Reasonable questions arise as to why, when Palin's insurmountable shortcomings were recognized, she was not cut loose from the ticket. If this was ever suggested to McCain, he almost certainly would have rejected it - not necessarily because of his refusal to admit that he was wrong, but rather because, as a maverick politician as well as a onetime purposeless youth who had himself undergone an incredible transformation, he could identify with her plight in ways his campaign staff could not.

Furthermore, abandoning her might have been even a greater political risk than keeping her on the ticket. There was the case of George McGovern, who as the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, dropped his running mate, Tom Eagleton, in mid-campaign. Eagleton had not revealed to McGovern his long earlier nervous breakdown, and it was the very reason the vetting process became more exhaustive in subsequent national campaigns, at least until 2008. After Eagleton was dumped and replaced by Sargent Shriver, questions arose regarding McGovern's initial judgment in making his vice presidential choice and later about his loyalty when he declined to stand by his running mate. While this may not fully explain why the Democratic national ticket was crushed in that election year, it most certainly did not help.

One need not be a Palin die-hard to wonder why even a marginally competent staff could have been so clueless about the need to take special pains to prepare a state governor with absolutely no foreign policy experience, much less expertise, for a national campaign.

When Schmidt finally presented Palin with 25 talking points and four "attack lines," and reiterated the necessity to pivot away from certain questions, she did well enough. But this was a textbook case of too little, too late. More recently, Mitt Romney clumsily executed such a pivot in a television interview. When the reporter repeated the original query, Romney told the interviewer he was free to ask his questions and he, the candidate, was equally free to respond the way he chose. Rather than finding himself mired in yet another swamp of vilification for that graceless riposte, as Palin doubtless would have been, the incident was all but ignored by the media.

The larger and unresolved question is why Palin was not presented with the talking points to memorize well before her bungled interview with Katie Couric revealed that the Alaska governor was a foreign policy featherweight. Was there really no one in McCain's seasoned inner circle to suggest that she learn talking points and how to bob and weave around and away from an interviewer's grilling? Palin's ability to deliver rousing red-meat speeches, both at Wright State University in Ohio and at the GOP National Convention, had convinced McCain's campaign staff that all would come up roses if they just let Sarah be Sarah.

Next to an inexplicably incompetent job of vetting, McCain's people flubbed the preparation process that would be fundamental in running the campaign of the town dogcatcher. That savvy professionals like Schmidt, Wallace and Mark Salter allowed crucial slips through the cracks proliferate beyond damage control is, in a word, inexcusable.

No two campaigns are exactly alike. There are pitfalls around every corner. While it is not always apparent when or where they may occur, the one certainty is that they will. The job of the campaign strategist is to expect them to pop up, be able to respond quickly when they do happen, know the candidate's strengths and deficiencies, know how to emphasize the former and be as thoroughly prepared as possible for the latter. The best possible preparation cannot avoid or retaliate against every potential slip-up, but the bottom line was that the Palin debacle, which many blame for McCain's defeat, was as much the campaign team's fault as it was her own.

None of this, however, should be a distraction from the glaring fact that the process for selecting vice presidential candidates is long overdue for closer examination.

Running mates have been selected less on their ability to serve as president than on how they can help the ticket win. That assistance is generally sought to compensate for an obvious shortcoming at the top of the ticket, which can range from the perception that the vice presidential choice might bring a key state, or even entire regions of the country, into the fold, to filling an experience or ideological gap in the presidential nominee's makeup.

For example, John F. Kennedy, then a Massachusetts senator, selected Texan Lyndon Johnson as much for the probability that the latter could carry his electoral vote-rich home state as for his mastery of the United States Senate. At the other end of the spectrum, George H. W. Bush was perceived to have chosen Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, less for his legislative acumen than to ensure that Bush, a bland and colorless presidential nominee, would not be upstaged by someone more vibrant and colorful.

In McCain's case, there were three decisive factors for choosing Palin: (1) She could deliver hardball rhetoric likely to woo the GOP's conservative base that had not been enamored of McCain's ideological transgressions as a member of Congress;(2) She just might resonate with women who felt Hillary Clinton was the victim of a raw deal by Democratic primary voters who preferred a relatively inexperienced, freshman senator merely because Hillary happens to be a woman, and (3) McCain saw her in his own image as a maverick unafraid to buck the party line when the occasion called for it.

The apparent very last consideration in a national campaign is whether the vice presidential nominee will be able to immediately assume the role of leader of the nation and the free world. The most significant decision the top of the ticket must make is who will be next in line of succession should the unthinkable happen. If "Game Change" should somehow finally lead to a serious re-thinking of this vital question, it will have become a truly unique entity - something unlike anything the realm of art and entertainment has ever before achieved.
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