Worthless GOP campaign hacks

Michelle Malkin and Ace of Spades are both enraged by what Ace calls the "kneecapping" of Sarah Palin by Team Maverick staffers. I've said from the get-go that her PR was mishandled, and just offered this example at AmSpecBlog:

Michelle Malkin has been a huge advocate and defender of Sarah Palin. Between Michelle's own site and her Hot Air video blog, Malkin Inc. gets 1.5 million online visitors daily, to say nothing of Malkin's Fox News connection. Michelle and her Hot Air crew were in St. Paul for the Republican convention. Did anybody at Team Maverick think, "Hey, why don't we hook up Malkin with an exclusive one-on-one with Palin? That would be buzzworthy -- an innovative use of New Media!" No, apparently that blindingly obvious idea never crossed their feeble little minds.

Another thing they should have done -- and I repeat it again, just in case anybody missed it the first 50 times I said it -- was to put Palin into an impromptu press conference Aug. 29, the day she was announced in Columbus, Ohio. With the surprise factor, the reporters would not have had time to prepare their "gotcha" questions.

If they'd just done that one press conference at the outset, the campaign wouldn't have been hammered for three weeks with accusations that they were "hiding" Palin. And if there had been a few little opportunities for GOP-friendly media -- like the Hot Air interview suggestion -- it would have helped tamp down the "what's she hiding?" factor that drove so much of the negativity. Once Palin actually started talking to reporters, a lot of that negativity faded. It was that three-week "cone of silence" phase that was the root of the problem.

Why Republican campaign operatives think they're helping candidates by secluding them from contact with the media is a mystery I'll never fathom.

UPDATE: Greg Ransom:

Will the McCain people please just go away, and stop doing their damndest to damage the Republican party and the conservative movement?

They're dishing dirt to the NY Times, naturally. And Allah says:

I assume this is a sign that Maverick’s headed back to the center, because if he thinks the base is sore at him now, wait until his cronies’ attempts to scapegoat their idol start percolating.

If you want to know why Republicans are getting their asses kicked, consider that they're hiring spokesmen like the snotty douchebag Tucker Bounds:

Granted, Campbell Brown is an Obamaphiliac bitch, but do you think the douchebag spokesman did anything to help the candidate with his snotty non-responsiveness? Do you think that Sarah Palin could have possibly done worse in a live interview than this douchebag? Imagine you're Sarah Palin -- somebody who started her career in TV news -- and you turn on the TV to see that the McCain campaign has sent out this douchebag to represent you. Wouldn't you start to suspect that somebody inside the campaign was trying to sabotage you?

The only way I figure Tucker Bounds got that job was that his daddy must be a major GOP donor or something. At least a dozen of my Facebook friends are more qualified to be campaign spokespeople.

UPDATE II: Operation Leper -- The campaign aides slagging Palin (hello, douchebags!) are going to be radioactive.

UPDATE III: Back in February, when she worked for CBS News, McCain operative Nicole Wallace:

"The more that we see kind of the crazies like Ann Coulter out attacking John McCain, the better Republicans feel about their chances in the general election."

Leprosy. Radioactive leprosy.

UPDATE IV: Hmmm. Nicolle always seems to criticize attractive, popular Republican women. Jealous much?