Not for pushing to have Sarah Palin on the GOP’s 2008 presidential ticket. For his conduct afterward, and especially for his role in the movie Game Change:
Game Change has three main characters: Palin, McCain and Steve Schmidt, the campaign strategist who pushed Palin for running mate as a way to compete with the charismatic Obama.
Played by Woody Harrelson, Schmidt supplies the film’s title, telling McCain in an early scene he needs a “game changing pick” for veep. Schmidt’s character spends the rest of the movie wrestling with the consequences of that decision.
In a phone interview, the real-life Schmidt said watching Harrelson in Game Change was like an “out-of-body experience.” Schmidt, who cooperated in the project, vouched for the film’s accuracy and called the story “an instance in which the ambition to win superseded judgment.”
“There are a lot of important lessons to be learned,” Schmidt said. “I regret playing a part in a process that yielded someone on the ticket who was not prepared to be president.”
McCain and Palin, and others who were there, say the film is inaccurate and very unfair to Palin. Schmidt worked with known Democrat donors to make this film. That sort of betrayal should not be rewarded by an Republican in the future. Hire Schmidt, and there’s a strong potential that you’re hiring the man who will knife you in the back.
Besides that, he ran an awful campaign in 2008 and lost to a one-term senator with no executive experience whatsoever. In addition to being a Judas, Steve Schmidt is a loser.
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