Reports of blame game emerge from McCain-Palin camp

Reports of a blame game developing in the McCain-Palin camp have been surfacing over the weekend as many pundits begin to write off Republican chances on November 4. A John McCain adviser is reported to have called Sarah Palin a "diva" after her supporters complained that her public appearances are too tightly stage-managed. There was even talk of Palin threatening to "go rogue" and do her own thing, so frustrated is she by the way the campaign is going.

A McCain adviser told CNN: "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party."

Speaking in Des Moines at the weekend, Palin once again took a campaign message further than John McCain has done. Both had warned that Barack Obama's tax policies were tantamount to "socialism", but Palin stated that Obama would create the kind of country "where the people are not free", raising the spectre of a communist state.

Despite all this, and the generally bad opinion polls, McCain keeps a brave face. On NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday he said: "I believe that I'm going to win it. It's going to be tight, and we're going to be up late, but we're going to win." His reason for confidence was a new Reuters-Zogby poll that put Obama ahead by a mere five points, compared to other recent polls suggesting a gap in double digits. "The polls are all over the map," McCain said.

Once again, McCain was forced to defend his choice of running mate after Palin's favourablity ratings dropped to 40 per cent from 64 per cent two months ago. Asked about the now infamous $150,000 wardrobe of designer clothes purchased for Palin and her family, McCain insisted: "She lives a frugal life."

The cost of the campaign wardrobe has become such an issue that Palin wore jeans to an event in North Carolina on Sunday night, and devoted much of her appearance to persuading the crowd that she was giving up wearing the clothes and accessories at the centre of the controversy.

Is the McCain-Palin tiocket doomed? Conservative commentator David Frum wrote in the Washington Post that the Republicans should shift resources from the presidential race "that is almost certainly lost" to senate ones, so that there would be a base on which to build a Republican revival after the election. "A beaten party needs a base from which to recover," Frum wrote.

Meanwhile, the biggest paper in Palin's home state, Alaska, has come out for Obama. The Anchorage Daily News said that while her nomination had "captivated" Alaskans, Palin was "too risky" to be one step away from the presidency.

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 27, 2008