Palin Planned Concession Speech

Sarah Palin arrived for John McCain’s final rally with her own speech in hand, the New York Times reports, to be told, firmly, by McCain’s top advisers that VP candidates do not get the microphone on election nights, win or lose. Her ambition to take the stage reinforced the McCain camp’s festering certainty that the Alaska governor has had her eye trained well beyond 2008, the sorest of many grievances that poisoned relations between the running mates.

There were major flaps over her fashion spending, her ill-prepared and ill-fated Katie Couric interview, and even the prank phone call incident. Many staffers believe a top Palin aide was leaking “a constant stream of poison” to New York Times columnist Bill Kristol. The columnist, a staunch Palin cheerleader, objects. “I wasn’t writing poison,” he protests. (More Election 2008 stories.)