Sarah Palin is running for a seat in the House of Representatives now that a vacancy has been left open by the late Don Young. Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, is hawking a struggling memoir to renew interest in herself, and presumably in the “traditional values” of the Republican Party. 

Steve Schmidt is having none of it. And he had no problem airing out the reasons why over the weekend.

Schmidt is the former GOP strategist who advised John McCain when the Arizona senator launched an ultimately failed bid to become president in 2008. He also helped to unleash Sarah Palin on America when she became McCain’s vice presidential nominee in that race.

This is something Schmidt has expressed public remorse about for some time, declaring 10 years ago that the vetting process for Palin was “failed” and that having her on the ticket was “worse than losing.”

Palin, for her part, has called Schmidt a saboteur. 

Incidentally, these old animosities were reanimated vividly in a roundabout sort of way this weekend as social media was abuzz that hardcover sales of Meghan McCain’s book, Bad Republican: A Memoir, had bombed tremendously. 

The memoir sold fewer than 300 copies in its first few days on the market, though the audiobook format performed considerably better. At some point McCain, and later Palin, drew this last spark of Schmidt’s public outrage after McCain appeared to like a tweet suggesting Schmidt was part of a pedophilia racket during the Trump administration. 

Schmidt unloaded on McCain, saying he was the “first adult … she ever encountered that she heard the word ‘no’ from,” and that even her own father was “appalled” by her years of bratty behavior and temper tantrums, despite being a woman in her 20s when they first met. 

As for Palin, she was dragged into the fray Sunday as the McCain commentary was gaining steam. Offering a bald summation of the former Alaska governor now vying for a seat in Congress, Schmidt said Palin should not be allowed anywhere near public office. 

“She is an absolutely degenerate liar. Pathological. Unfit. Unwell. She’s a quitter and a buffoon who has no business ever holding a position of public trust, ever. Not even as a crossing guard. Nothing.”

Schmidt also said Sunday that he was so disturbed by Palin’s conduct behind the scenes and on the public stage that when John McCain lost to Barack Obama, it was him who went out of the way to ensure that this moment too was not tainted by Palin. 

“I placed the phone call to Barack Obama for the concession and did everything I could to ensure a beautiful speech wasn’t disgraced by the nutball from Alaska,” he wrote. 

Palin may not have an uphill fight for the seat that Young vacated despite a waning celebrity star. Her reemergence into politics after a stint in reality television isn’t a total handicap. According to Politico, Alaska pollsters last month said Palin still had the highest favorability rating and was outperforming her Republican opponents in a crowded race. 

Schmidt left the GOP after it aligned itself almost entirely with former President Donald Trump. 

Republished with permission from Daily Kos.