Hey McCain, how do you like your boy genius now?
October 19, 2008 by Joe Newman
Filed under From the Blogs
Can it really be less than two months since the New York Times told the world how political strategist Steve Schmidt had transformed the McCain campaign into “an elbows-out, risk-taking, disciplined machine”? At the time, I remember having a visceral reaction to its description of Schmidt’s “brillilance.”
It bothered me that McCain’s surge in the polls was being credited to Schmidt’s attacking style and his penchant for hard-hitting, negative campaigning. What would you expect from a Karl Rove protege? Were Swift Boat politics going to be validated once again?
Now, with McCain’s campaign in a stuttering, discombobulated, mob-powered free fall, I wonder if Schmidt is still wearing the genius tag? If he gets credit for McCain pulling the race even over the summer, then does he get the blame for the looming electoral-college rout on the horizon?
