Joe the M.I.A.

By GottaLaff

The Further Adventures of the Worst F***ing Campaign Ever:

McCain aides told CNN's Dana Bash Wurzelbacher would appear with the Republican presidential candidate at his first campaign event in Defiance, Ohio. But in what was a slightly awkward moment for McCain, Wurzelbacher was nowhere to be seen when the Arizona senator called out for him.

A campaign aide later said Wurzelbacher had "decided not to come" and may join McCain later in the day.

But reached at his home by CNN's Mary Snow, Wurzelbacher said it was "news to him" that he was supposed to be at the McCain rally. Wurzelbacher said nobody from the McCain campaign confirmed he was attending the event and called the incident a "miscommunication." [...]

UPDATE: Contacted by CNN a second time, Wurzelbacher said the campaign only called him to confirm after the event in question already took place. He will now try to meet up with McCain later in the day.

Wurzelbacher also said he had gotten an initial call about coming to the morning rally, "but no one called back to confirm," and was "not happy" that McCain had called out his name and he wasn't there.

Yeah, I'd trust this team with the Big Red Button.

Quickie-O'-The'Day: Gramm-pa McCain Campaign Post-Mortem

By GottaLaff

I usually don't do this, but there's too much to post. I did give you a preview of this here.

This is the New York Times Magazine article in full, released today.

Chris Cillizza gives you highlights here.

Gramm-pa McCain's aides: IWRC* Palin is a ‘total disaster.’

By GottaLaff

If Gramm-pa's aides had just thought to drop by TPC, we could have filled them in long ago. Harper’s Scott Horton:

HORTON: We’ve got a lot of finger-pointing going on within the camp, and I’d say there’s a pretty broad agreement amongst a number of the senior-most advisors to McCain that the Palin pick is worse than disappointing. It’s a total disaster, as one describes to me. And there is a sort of blame game going on there. […]

I would say the anger and irritation between a number of the senior people in the McCain camp and Bill Kristol is become really acute. … They view this man as the guy who gave them this albatross, Sarah Palin. I think there’s a lot of real anger about it. There’s also recognition that it’s too late to do anything.

Horton said neoconservatives are “now just proceeding to develop Palin as their candidate, as somebody they want to bring up in 2012, as the neo-con favored Republican.”

They'll have a whole lot of developing to do. And how will they get around all her many scandals, ethics lapses, and associations? Oh, silly me. I forgot. All they have to do is lie.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

UPDATE, this the candidate they want to groom. She thinks "we shouldn’t worry about government having enough money, the government has plenty of money":

WFCE*

By GottaLaff

Cricket, cricket...

Via FiveThirtyEight:

They probably assume if they haven't heard of us, how much exposure could photos of their huge phone banks with 40 phones and one lonely caller at their state headquarters three weeks before the election really get?

We get an average of about 10-15,000 readers a day. I'm guessing FiveThirtyEight gets way more. Let's start with that.

H/t: Hilary

*Worst F***ing Campaign Ever

Who really loves ACORN? Why John McCain

New acronym- WFCE. They're just shooting wildly and hitting themselves.

The beleaguered Democratic-leaning community group Acorn sends over this photograph: John McCain, in March of 2006, sitting beside Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek at an event Acorn co-sponsored in Florida.

The immigration event, which other photos show was packed with red-shirted Acorn member, was co-sponsored by the local Catholic Archdiocese, the SEIU, and other groups.

McCain, still spiting much of his party on immigration at the time, was the headliner.

Bertha Lewis, Acorn's chief organizer, said in a statement that came with the photo, “It has deeply saddened us to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN and our efforts to support the goals of low-income Americans."