Max Blumenthal: Council for National Policy “Hidden Hand Behind McCain’s Palin Pick”

by matttbastard

For those who claim that the McCain campaign didn’t thoroughly vet their VP nominee before offering her a slot on the ticket, Max Blumenthal puts all concerns to rest:

Last week, while the media focused almost obsessively on the DNC’s spectacle in Denver, the country’s most influential conservatives met quietly at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis to get to know Sarah Palin. The assembled were members of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.

CNP members have included Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich. At a secret 2000 meeting of the CNP, George W. Bush promised to nominate only pro-life judges; in 2004, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told the group, “The destiny of the nation is on the shoulders of the conservative movement.” This year, thanks to Sarah Palin’s selection, the movement may have finally aligned itself behind the campaign of John McCain.

[…]

I learned of the get-together only through an online commentary by one of its attendees, top Dobson/Focus on the Family flack Tom Minnery. (Watch it here) Minnery described the mood as CNP members watched Palin accept her selection as John McCain’s Vice Presidential pick. “I was standing in the back of a ballroom filled with largely Republicans who were hoping against hope that something would put excitement back into this campaign,” Minnery said. “And I have to tell you, that speech by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin — people were on their seats applauding, cheering, yelling… That room in Minneapolis watching on the television screen was electrified. I have not seen anything like it in a long time.”

Minnery added that his boss, Dobson, has yearned for a conservative female leader like Margaret Thatcher to emerge on the American scene. And while Palin is no Thatcher, “she has not rejected the feminine side of who she is, so for that reason, she will be attractive to conservative voters.”

The members of the Council for National Policy are the hidden hand behind McCain’s Palin pick. With her selection, the Republican nominee is suddenly — and unexpectedly — assured of the support of a movement that once opposed his candidacy with all its might.

Ask, and ye shall receive. Once again, Sarah Palin isn’t on the ticket to pick up Clinton voters; her unexpected nomination is nothing but a blatant pander to the religious right and an undeniable affirmation of its continued power within the contemporary GOP. And now that Dobson has his low-rent Thatcher mock-up (if the Iron Lady weren’t still among the living she’d be doing a 720 in her grave) as requested, he suddenly seems to be considering a change of heart with regards to McCain’s acceptability.

Imagine that.

Related: publius believes the disparate reactions under the GOP big tent to the Palin nomination are indicative of “a proxy war between more elite/DC neocon Republicans and the social conservative base.”

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