A Rovian-Style Strategy: Feed 'em Turkey Burgers & Call It Steak

Two days ago, I published this post for all of five minutes, but then thought, F it, I'm tired of the story, so I yanked it. I'm still mad about it though, and my opinions haven't changed, so here it is again.

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I don't believe for five seconds that Bristol Palin is five months pregnant.

There, I said it, and now I'll tell you why.

It's smells like a brilliant Rovian strategy for damage control.

Now I'll tell you how easy it would be to get away with a major whopper. I ain't saying this happened, but as they say, the bigger the lie, the more likely folks will believe it.

So first, what would you do if you were a campaign strategist, and thanks to the kaboom Internet rumors, heard that your candidate "Ms. X", is the grandmother - not the mother - of her teenage daughter's baby?

Add into this that the mainstream print and broadcast media spent the entire weekend right up until Monday morning pretending the story didn't even exist.

Then, you, the mastermind, explored it, spoke with your candidate Ms. X. and discovered it was true.

Unless you and your party wanted your candidate to lose so you wouldn't have to clean up a mess they made in previous years, you'd come up with a brilliant lie.

And it would have to be brilliant.

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You might think of Sarah Palin, who had labor contractions in Texas in the wee hours of the morning and gave a keynote address speech, caught an 8 hour flight to Alaska with a stopover in Seattle, and once arriving in Anchorage, drove another 45 minutes to the one in Palmer, Alaska.

Yet to hear her tell it, she did all this - allegedly with her doctors approval - knowing it was a high risk pregnancy with a Downs Syndrome baby and that she was delivering prematurely, which by the way, is reported to weighing 6.2 pounds. That's hardly premature weight.

By the way, pregnant women in labor are usually not allowed to fly. Alaska Airlines staff didn't even know she was pregnant.

Nor did the photographers who did a fashion model shoot of her for Vogue magazine.

Nor did her own staff, until she shocked them with her announcement in March of this year, only six weeks before she delivered.

Meanwhile her 16 year old daughter Bristol was out of school for most of the year, allegedly for infectious mononucleosis. In every photo I've seen of her, she's holding the baby and looks very loving and maternal.

The public was dying to know WTF was and is going on in the Sarah Palin case and for damn good reason.

You would recall all of this.

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So now you, a Rovian-style political strategist and mastermind, would wonder how you could turn your candidate's nightmare of a story into a dream. How would you do it?

Easy.

If you don't mind playing with the truth, you'd feed the public a turkey burger and tell them it's steak.

You'd make up another whopper that your candidate's daughter became pregnant the exact same month that her mother, Ms. X, delivered that baby. This would make it physiologically impossible for the daughter to conceive a baby in the same month she was rumored to give birth to child.

If Candidate X's daughter was conveniently three months pregnant now, you would arrange for her to have an induced labor two months away from her due date, so her baby would be born when it's 'supposed' to be - but it would be underweight and premature.

No problem! You'd keep that info under wraps or lie about that too.

Or, if your Candidate X's daughter is not really pregnant, you'd issue a statement in the near future that she (conveniently for your campaign and party) had a miscarriage.

Meanwhile, your strategy would make your candidate's daughter happy too. She'd 'help' her mom - Candidate X - by 'babysitting' 24/7 for her 'little brother', whom she loves since it's really her child. That's all she wants anyway.

Thus you've eliminated the snitch factor. Oh, she might be tempted to write a book years from now, but why worry about that?

See how easy that was?

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Did this happen in the Sarah Palin case? *shrugs*

This brings us back to her case. If her daughter Bristol is five months pregnant, then she conceived in April, and her baby is due in January.

What are we supposed to think if it arrives that month, but it's underweight and premature? Or if she's reported to have a miscarriage between now and then?

If the latter occurs, expect the political left to be conveniently blamed for stressing her out, the same way some twerp reporter asked Obama if the "rumors were true that his people started this rumor" that Bristol is pregnant.

The blogging world wasn't talking about Bristol being currently pregnant this past weekend. They were speculating if she was pregnant in the past and if Sarah is Trig's grandma.

Barack did the right thing, in a way, by saying that the spouses and children of political figures should be off limits. I agree, except when the rumors are so remarkable - like this one, or Barack being a Muslim despite evidence that he's never been a Muslim and that he's been a Christian over 20 years, or not being a US citizen.

He denied his campaign was involved in "spreading rumors".

What rumors? There were none that I read that Bristol is currently pregnant... but there were rumors that Sarah Palin is Trig's grandmother.

Bro ain't going there in that Baby Mama Drama. The media would barbeque him and too many potential white voters would be pissed.

There's a long history in this world of the middle and upper classes of all races not liking it one bit when it's revealed that their behavior is no different than that of the working and underclass.

I'll betcha if it had been Barack's daughter in question, the McCain attack dogs would have gone after him with rabid jaws. Faux News already described his wife as his baby's mama, knowing he and Michelle were married long before they had children. They're such assholes.

Interesting too, how photos of Sarah have been disappearing like crazy from the Alaska state site and elsewhere. So have photos of Bristol. Even the Daily Kos took their story off their site on Monday. I found this unfortunate. If there's nothing to hide, why hide them?

Thus, by announcing the story of Palin's daughter being five months pregnant, the mastermind in the McCain campaign gave the public a bone to chew on and cause enough doubt that the family's privacy should be left alone.

Obama endorsed this.

Thus, the doubters are unlikely to get what they really want: DNA testing as proof that Sarah is the mother of Trig.

Now you might want to know why this stupid ass story is important or why I still care about it.

It pisses me off. The facts are too bizarre and unbelievable, from Sarah Palin's not showing signs of pregnancy to how she acted on the day she allegedly gave birth to Trig.

Sarah Palin is 100% anti-abortion even in cases of incest and rape, and aligned firmly with the folks who want to reverse the Roe vs. Wade decision.

Notice that I didn't say she is pro-life.

People are truly pro-life don't align themselves to political parties invested in a century of wars and pre-emptive nuclear strikes on nations that have not attacked us. Otherwise they're just saving the fetuses to let them fight and die on future battlefields, or for the luckless and racially-profiled poor, to become free labor in privatized prisons.

Palin also espouses family values and abstinence. She believes Creationism should be taught in schools, not as an elective which is fine, but as science. Intellectual design, as they sugar coat it, is religion, not science.

All of this treads on hard fought and won women's rights over their bodies, civil rights, and the rights of parents who may not want their kids to be forced into learning Christian religious beliefs.

Before you think I'm pro-abortion and not Christian, think again. I believe life begins at conception, and I am a Christian. I also value this multicultural democracy and people having the freedoms in our Constitution. I am all for war for self-defense if we are legitimately and unquestionable attacked.

If Sarah Palin wasn't in line to become the Vice President or possibly the President, I wouldn't give a rat's azz how this church lady runs her life beyond feeling sorry as hell for her kids. But if this baby switch story is true, it is indicative of how she would run our country.

She would make Bush and Cheney look like newbies.

Imagine that.

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Addendum, 9/04/2008 - The Day After Palin's RNC Speech

For the record, Palin's daughter Bristol appears to be four to five months pregnant to me. If so, this means it's damned unlikely she's the mother of Trig.

Why in the hell Sarah Palin went into labor at 4 AM in Texas, gave a speech that morning, then caught an 8 hour flight back to Anchorage, Alaska, then drove another hour to a hospital in another town to deliver this baby arriving prematurely in a high-risk pregnancy is beyond me. It didn't help either that her staff, colleagues, or anyone could tell that she was pregnant six weeks before delivery, nor did her photos reflect this. All of this while her daughter Bristol was out of school for half a year for mononucleosis, which is highly unusual.

Was I wrong? Unless Bristol delivers a full-term baby in January, yes. If so, I apologize. I actually hope the rumors and my earlier doubts prove incorrect because Palin's daughter has enough on her plate without being part of an old style family drama of let's pretend Grandma is Mama so the family won't be embarrassed.