The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

From the Future Ambassador to Vanuatu

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 14 Comments

Feb. 17, 2010: When we first met by accident in an elevator
at CPAC, Marco Rubio said to me, ‘Hey, your camera’s pink.’

After the events of this afternoon, I e-mailed my American Spectator story (about Marco Rubio denying my Thursday exclusive) to a fellow journalist. He replied, “My guess is that you were right about the story, too.” And this seemed to require an explanation on my part:

Well, whether or not I was “right” — that is, whether my source was correct about the actions and motives of Cesar Conda — the facts are that (a) my sources said what my sources said, (b) [redacted description of key source], (c) Cesar was named specifically, (d) this story just “fell in my lap” and (e) both Rubio’s advocacy for an early primary and Conda’s Romney connection had been previously reported elsewhere.
The dots were already forming a pattern. My sources just named Conda as the glue connecting the dots. Maybe they were mistaken, who knows? But I didn’t “make it up out of thin air,” and the fact that my sources don’t want to fall afoul of Conda (or Rubio or Romney) was something I knew before I reported it. Ergo, I’m on the hook for a story I can’t prove but which a lot of people vow is the real explanation behind all this.
Also, glancing at my notes, I now see that the name “Jeb Bush” appears for some reason, reminding me that the phrase “the Jeb Bush people” was used by one of my sources to describe the forces arrayed behind the (alleged, but officially denied) Conda/ Rubio/ Romney push. But I can’t remember now which source used that phrase, and I also don’t remember whether this was characterized as a known fact or just speculation.
Well, just another day on the beat, eh? I was sitting here Thursday minding my own business when the phone rang, and the tip struck me as heavy enough to make some calls and turn it into a story, so I’ll take whatever blowback I get. As I said in an update to my blog just now, I plan to be laughing about this over beers in Tampa in August, and by then maybe it will be sufficiently safe to tell the truth. Cesar Conda will come into the hotel bar, offer to buy me a beer and say, “Hey, Stace, can you get me in with the Cain people? Because ever since the Romney campaign imploded after that Vegas debate last October, I’ve been trying to get through to them, and they won’t talk to me. And now that Paul Ryan is Herman’s VP pick …”
Eh, forgive and forget, y’know? Let bygones be bygones, I always say. It’s the Christian thing to do.
– Robert Stacy McCain
Future U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu

 





 

 
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Category: Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Florida, Herman Cain, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Vanuatu

Comments

  • Anonymous

    When you are here in August, *I* will buy you a beer!  Cheers!

  • Anonymous

    Sorry I missed you during my 9/12 visit to Tampa.

  • Anonymous

    No problem. I understood the family priority issues thing. SWMBO comes first ;)

  • Joe

    I want to see Santorum and Bachman drop out to give Cain the push to top Romney. 

  • Joe

    It would be sweeeeeet to see the Florida plan backfire on Jeb and the boys. 

    I hope Marco was not behind this (it is possible Cesar Conda did this on his own).  But that does seem unlikely. 

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Why didn’t you tell us this before?  Jeb Bush’s name appears in your notes?!!!???

    What more proof could we ask of a far-reaching conspiracy?  After all, remember before he was President, Jeb’s Papa was  . . . Director of the C. I. Freakin’ A.!

    And let me guess just WHERE in your notes Jeb’s name appears:  on the back, and to the left.  Back, and to the left.  Back, and to the left . . .

  • http://2011.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

    Mitt and Jeb.

    It must be a hair thing.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Stacy, number one, if I absolutely had to bet my life on it, I’d bet you’ve been played by a Perry operative. Or maybe your “sources” (there’s more than one?) was played by a Perry operative. Now granted, that doesn’t mean the story as you reported it has no validity. But I keep coming back to the fact that at the time this Florida primary move was announced, Perry was still leading nationally, and the two main players in the Florida legislature responsible for this were Perry supporters. And you even noted yourself in an earlier update (the one with the link to Shark Tank, I think) that a former Crist official was involved with the Perry campaign as well as the primary move in some way.

    Number two, most people aren’t policy wonk groupies. If you’re pushing for Paul Ryan as VP, that might only be a notch or two in quality above Tim Pawlenty. I’ve never seen Ryan speak so I could be wrong, but I can’t see him stirring the crowds to a frenzy, to put it charitably.

  • http://twitter.com/texasps Paula

    I’ve been thinking about this and you might be right.  Maybe Stacy got punked.  I don’t agree on the Perry operative theory though.  I would believe a Romney operative would do it though, to discredit The Other McCain. (Hasn’t this site been getting a lot of hits because of Cain stories?)  Cain is a BIG threat to Romney.   I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop as I think there is more to be revealed.  So the jury is still out and this is just more food for thought.  

    At least this isn’t a boring election cycle.  sigh. LOL  Ain’t we got fun?

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Paula I don’t think Romney would do that, as he would be doing something that would make himself look bad. Maybe a Perry plant in the Romney campaign would do that, but this seems to be coming from inside the Rubio camp. It seems like something a Perry supporter would do, whether Perry is directly involved, who knows? I would guess probably not but you never can tell. What I do know is Perry has raised a lot of money from a lot of people who are probably feeling pretty desperate right now, people that had initially thought he was a shoe-in for the nomination when he first entered the race. I keep going back to the fact that Perry was ahead in the national polls (about ten percent ahead of Romney) when this Florida move was first announced and that the two main guys responsible were Perry supporters themselves. This just seems like a desperation tactic to me.

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