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.
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 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.
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.
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