Nat'l Journal's Rauch: Schmidt going post-Rovian

"That was when it dawned on us. We're way beyond cynicism here. We've warped out of cosmopolitan logic altogether. We're in a new political space. We're epistemological pioneers! Republicans are the party of freedom and personal choice, right? So what's the ultimate freedom? What's the ultimate choice? 'X and not X--you can have it all!'

"The public wants change and experience. That's what you're promising. They're 90 percent there. All you need to do is help them close the deal. Here, listen to this script:

"Barack Obama says he's 'young.' But is he really? Being young is about more than just talk. Look behind the words, and you'll find the same old policies. From the same old people.

"Anyone can come out of nowhere and claim to be young. John McCain has been proving his youth for decades, ever since he was a young POW in a dark isolation cell in Vietnam.

"John McCain will bring real youth to Washington. The kind of youth that gets results.

"John McCain. A president you can trust to be young."

The Biggest Piece of Shit in America:

Steve Schmidt is a veteran campaign strategist and public relations expert. In his career to date he has been (from sourcewatch):

* Communications director for Senate campaign of Matt Fong. (1998)
* Chief strategist in charge of Supreme Court nominations of Samuel A. Alito. and Chief Justice John Roberts
* Counselor and spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney.
* Member of the exclusive "breakfast club" led by top White House adviser Karl Rove that ran President Bush's re-election campaign. (2004)
* Campaign Manager for re-election campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (2006)

Currently Steve Schmidt is working as a campaign strategist and advisor to 2008 Presidential campaign of Senator John McCain. On July 2, 2008, Schmidt was promoted to heading up day to day operations of the McCain campaign in response to concerns that the McCain campaign was losing ground to Obama.

Since that point, July 2, 2008 - the Republican attempt to win the presidency has reached new lows almost daily as McCain appears willing to sell whatever was left of his soul and the shine of his one heroic act to win the White House so that he can give his friends more money and fritter away whatever's left of the American economy and its standing in the world in the pursuit of giving that money to his friends.

This was the man who helped Frenchify John Kerry and who seems to understand that his position is basically only made in negative assertion of the other because his own candidate's positions are antithetical to any sane approach to government.

I despise McCain for his willingness to leave important issues in the stink of name-calling and pointless assertions of gym-attending, but it's the Steve Schmidts of the world who I hope to God one day are forced to give account of their actions to an awakened American public. And I hope on the day that happens that after giving account, he will have to climb back into the sewer he's emerged from and is never seen again.