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I doubt that this film will be able to be judged on its merit, and will instead be either praised or called a big lie, specifically depending on how you feel about Palin.

I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.  It painted Palin out to be in completely over her head, during the campaign.  Other than that, I thought it was a fair depiction of the McCain campaign.  It also humanized all of them....even Palin and you even felt sorry for her sometimes.  I didn't think it embarrassed her too bad, but also didn't sugar coat the fact that she was way behind the 8-ball on the things you need to know from a political perspective and a history perspective.  It served as the behind the scenes leadups to things like the Katie Couric interview, the Biden debate, etc.  A lot of it uses real life footage intercut from journalists and news anchors.

I thought McCain came out looking pretty good, with the only cricizable thing being that he made a political play over what he really wanted (he wanted to go with Lieberman), but he's a politician, so I don't think anyone would fairly hold that against him.  Also, the film definitely didn't blame Palin for the loss.  They painted the picture that the loss was inevitable, and McCain's only play was a "game change" -- a high-risk/high-reward pick that appealed to conservatives and women, two places that McCain was losing in polling.

The guy played by Woody Harrelson (Steve Schmidt) is a regular on the political talk-shows, and according to him, the depiction (of the book by the same name) is accurate.  McCain denies, but he kinda has to. 
Spoilers for real life:

Basically, McCain's campaign had to vet Palin in only 5 days (where they normally spend weeks).  The hired a guy to do it, but he only vetted her personally, finding out about her political career and her family life.  They knew about her pregnant daughter, for example.

However, what came down to a simple mixup, they didn't vet her on policy.  They didn't check to see if she was knowledgable.  The guy hired to vet her thought the campaign did it, and the campaign thought the guy did it.  So, when it came time to discuss policy, everyone was caught way off guard.

Pretty fascinating to see how it all went down.

I missed this one the other night. I expect it will be on HBO On Demand this week so I'll check for it today.

I didn't see the movie, but I can't imagine how painting Palin to be completely over her head could be considered an unfair depiction of the McCain campaign. 

She didn't know what NAFTA is.  She didn't have clue about GWB's foriegn policy doctrine.  The question, "name a newspaper or magizine you read regularly?" Stumped her.  She wore a scarf depiciting the DNC mascot.  She was completely over her head. 


I will hold it against him.  For two reasons:  1) it was out of character and 2) it was a bad political move.

1.  What made McCain different was he wasn't an ideolog.  He was more than willing to reach across the table.   He went with his conscious, not what the latest poll said or his party leaders though was best.  McCain was willing to call out GWB on tourcher.  Palin was not.  Bill Clinton & GWB were the types to take a poll to see which color tie they should were, not McCain.  His problem in the campaign was he stopped being the John McCain the majority of Americans respected.

2.  It was a bad political move.  He wasn't polling well with conservatives?  The primaries were over.  Who were the conservatives going to vote for?  The liberal black senator?   McCain should have not worried about how he was polling with conservatives and worried more how he was doing with moderates and unaffliated voters.  Here Lieberman and a different campaign strat could have helped him big time.  While Frimp may have not liked how McCain handled the town hall Arab question about Obama, undecided moderates respected McCain for his response.   Never mind Palin's problems with being a bad campaigner -- her selection scared the crap out of moderates.  She is further to the right than GWB.  Her selection sent a clear and unambigious message that McCain had sold out to extremist in his party.  OTOH had he selected Lieberman he could have ran a credible campaign that if elected his white house would be extremely bipartisan and he was going to work with both parties to improve America for the good.  That he wasn't going to judge an idea or a person based party affilation but the quality and merits. 

I don't question that she was in over her head.  I think that was a fair depiction, as even most Republicans will tell you.

The only thing I question is the specifics of what she didn't know behind the scenes.  There is one scene where they're prepping for possible interview questions and the team throws out a question, something along the lines of "The war in Iraq is becoming more and more unpopular in England.  How would you respond to losing their support, should they decide to pull out?"  She tries to give a generic answer about the US's relationship with England over the years.  ...which is fine.  Except she talk about the queen.  She says "Our presidents have always had a good relationship with the queen."  Then, the guy says "Well, the queen isn't the one in charge.  She's just the figurehead."  And Palin says "Well, then who's in charge?"  "The prime minister."  And then she starts taking notes.

Whether that specific example happened or not, it showed the point that she wasn't up to snuff on basic facts about world policy.  If that actually did happen verbatim, that's scary.

I don't know if that happened verbatim or not.  But I do know there were examples of how little she knew of world policy, that they could have used anyone of a dozen others that would have been just as scary or more so, so they really didn't have any need to make stuff up.   

Having now seen the movie, I don't think it told me much about Palin that I didn't know already. I am curious how accurate the meltdown was. If it was accurately portrayed then it can indeed be called nothing other than a meltdown. It scares the hell out of me to think how close she was to being in the White House.