It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post. Being 8 months pregnant, my world is full of preparations for Baby Karras these days, leaving me following politics from the sidelines, but without much concentration or wit to comment on the stories of the day.

But, this I had to share for anyone that missed it. And because it boggles the mind so much that I needed to memorialize the back-handedness of this company and our government that owns it.

As I was watching 60 Minutes yesterday night, a commercial for GM came on, starring Ed Whiteacre, the CEO of General Motors. Mr. Whiteacre proudly claimed that GM has “repaid [their] government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of schedule.” Hmmm, I wondered, scratching my head. How did GM do this? They couldn’t possibly have recovered and sold that many cars in such a short period of time? My husband and I gave each other that look that says, I’m afraid to find out the answer to that question. What kind of sketchy accounting scheme did they use to accomplish that?

Well, I said that in jest, but it turns out to be absolutely true. Ed Morrissey of Hot Air picked up on the story and pointed out that GM repaid its government loan with other TARP funds that were available to it. Yes, I know it’s outrageous and confusing all in one. Here’s the story. And in case you missed it, the bogus commercial.

This week, Politico reported on Democrats’ contingency plans in the event of a Brown victory in the Massachusetts race. According to Politico, their strategy is as follows.

1. Paint the loss of a red state Senate seat as a continuation of the problems that fueled President Obama’s candidacy to begin with. “The painstaking campaign for change over two years in 2007 and 2008 has become a painstaking effort in the White House too.”

2. But you might say, the Democrats control the White House AND Congress, so how can this be a continuation of the same frustrations with the new administration and Congress holding all the cards? They have an answer for this too: “It’s not as if having 60 votes in the Senate has made life a walk in the park.”

3. When all else fails, blame capitalism. Whose side are you on? Greedy bankers? Corrupt oil companies? Inhumane insurance companies? Or, do you stand with us (Democrats) on the people’s side? Castigate profit generators, job generators while simultaneously touting that the bottom line is jobs, jobs, jobs.

This worked for the administration for a good part of 2009. Take the stimulus as an example. After all, the Democrats still have not been held accountable for spending nearly $800 billion on a program that failed to stimulate anything but the expansion of government. This strategy of distraction has worked so far for Democrats, so why fix something that isn’t broken?

This strategy is so shallow that were it not so arrogant and offensive, it would be laughable. It implies that the American people are uninformed and obtuse — that despite continuing job losses, a constantly ballooning deficit and continuing government intervention in the private sector, Americans’ desire for ‘change’ from the previous administration is going to perpetually buy this White House time to push forward their agenda — at whatever the cost.

It’s difficult to miss the irony here that the very same Democrats that painted former President Bush and his administration as out of touch with the American people, simply cannot understand that the debate taking place in the public arena for the last year, arguably since the passage of the stimulus and the onset of the tea party movement, cannot be won by simply switching up their PR strategy.

After the 2008 election, it wasn’t long before the tensions between some McCain campaign insiders and Sarah Palin went public. In Going Rogue, Palin discusses her experiences with one of McCain’s strategists, Steve Schmidt, and the overall flaws in the McCain camp’s strategy as she saw them. On 60 Minutes this week, Steve Schmidt took the animosity and the drama to a whole new level, taking to the air to further bash Palin, stating:

“[The person in charge of Palin's debate prep]  told us that the debate was going to be a debacle of historic and epic proportions. He told us she was not focused, she was not engaged, she was really not participating in the prep.”

He also said, that there were many instances in which Palin couldn’t keep her facts straight, and that this continues to add to the perception many have of Palin today, namely, that she is unlearned and inarticulate.

What has always interested me about this issue is why these McCain strategists were so quick to throw Palin under the bus. The obvious reason is that she is an easy scapegoat; bringing down Palin allows them to escape all responsibility for running a poor campaign. But, a recent comment by Democrat strategist Paul Begala on this issue has peaked my curiosity about the Palin-bashers, particularly Schmidt, once again. Politico quotes Begala as saying,

“I don’t think he has anything to gain from it. It’s not going to get Schmidt a whole lot of clients in Republican Party and he’s not selling a book. So it just may be that he is telling the truth.”

Begala’s certainly right that Schmidt’s coming out to trash Palin in the public arena can’t possibly help him with conservatives. Even former McCain supporters will likely wish to distance themselves from an individual they can’t trust to keep behind-the-scene problems out of the public arena. And, given the popularity of Palin’s populist conservatism and the rise of the tea parties, the odds are against Schmidt if he was banking on a Republican party that would reject Palin. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the direction conservatism is taking.

Begala thinks Schmidt might simply be telling the truth. I’ve followed Palin closely and read her book, and I haven’t seen any compelling evidence of the Palin that Schmidt describes. So I have to wonder if Schmidt’s goal might just be to make friends in the Democrat party? Is it possible he’s setting himself up for a Dick Morris-type jump to the other side of the political aisle? Otherwise, to what end is he putting himself out there and making these allegations? If it’s not going to further his career in the Republican party, and it’s not going to benefit him financially, what’s his purpose?

If it turns out that my imagination is just getting the best of me and this isn’t the case for Schmidt, it will certainly be interesting to watch the unraveling of this relationship and how Palin continues to handle this kind of negative attention as she moves forward in her political career. As for Schmidt, he seems to be on a losing streak, first the campaign and now the war on Palin.

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I’m a 28 year old politicophile (I like to make everything sound Greek), all around political/news junkie, blogger, first-generation Greek and (hope to one day be a recovered) lawyer. When I’m not practicing law, I spend my time writing for the Sam Adams Alliance, the Lucy Burns Institute and starting soon, the American Issues Project’s blog which I’m very excited to join.

I’m a researcher and perfectionist by nature, and I’ve spent the last couple years shocked at how much bad information is out there and how misinformed people are. When I worked on my first political campaign, our campaign manager sat us down at a strategy session to drive it into our heads that we (our team) were not normal…because as you might imagine, people who VOLUNTEER to work night and day on campaigns are extreeeemly passionate about politics. He went on to say that most people watch a few minutes of their local news a day and get all the political information they need there to form their political opinions. That.is.sad. No doubt about it. Whose fault is it that people are not informed? That’s a whole other story…the days of the citizen-politician are looooong gone. Everyone’s at fault. People are at fault for not educating themselves. But I believe the story is deeper than that. People are FRUSTRATED by their politicians. They feel disconnected. They are jaded by corruption which we now assume just comes along with the territory. And the politicians, well, it’s not necessarily in their interest to have an informed constituency, is it?

These are the kinds of question I hope to explore on this blog along with providing commentary on the big news of the day. All (civil and respectful) comments are welcome.