Plot
Summer, 2008: John McCain secures the nomination, but polls behind Barack Obama. Strategist Steve Schmidt suggests a game changer: picking a conservative female with media savvy, unknown Alaska governor Sarah Palin, as vice president. She's an immediate hit and a quick study - the gap closes. Then, Tina Fey's impersonation, a raft of criticism, and missing her family send Palin into a near-catatonic state: she doesn't prepare for her Katie Couric interview and bombs. Schmidt searches for an answer: don't expect her to learn the issues, but give her a script. Palin does well in the debate with Biden; she finds her voice, goes off script, and goes rogue. A mistake?
Keywords: 2008-presidential-election, acceptance-speech, alaska, american-soldier, argument, arizona, breaking-telephone, bus, campaign, campaign-manager
Politics would never be the same.
Steve Schmidt: You seem totally unfazed by all this.::Sarah Palin: It's God's plan.
John McCain: You're one of the leaders of the party now Sarah. Don't get co-opted by Limbaugh and the other extremists. They'll destroy the party if you let them.
Steve Schmidt: Still think she's fit for office?::Rick Davis: Aw, who cares. In forty-eight hours no one will even remember who she is.
Anderson Cooper: If you had to do it over again, would you have her on the ticket?::Steve Schmidt: You don't get to go back in time, Anderson and have do-overs in life.
John McCain: And they said we were dead. Next stop the White House!
Rick Davis: Listen, I too wish that the American people would choose the future Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson, but unfortunately, that's not the way it works anymore. Now it takes movie-star charisma to get elected President, and Obama and Palin, that's what they are - they're stars.::Steve Schmidt: Primary difference being Sarah Palin can't name a Supreme Court decision, whereas Barack Obama was a constitutional law professor.::Rick Davis: Fuck you.
Woman: I can't trust Obama. I've read about him and he's not a... he's a... he's a arab. He's not an Americ...::John McCain: No, ma'am. No, ma'am. He's a decent family man citizen who I just happen to have some disagreements with on certain fundamental issues. And that's what this campaign is all about.
Sarah Palin: Why'd you make me do Katie Couric? Did you see the coverage? Did you? [silence] ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?::Nicolle Wallace: Yes, Governor, I'm here. Katie was a logical choice; she's been very fair to us this entire campaign.::Sarah Palin: You call that interview fair?::Nicolle Wallace: Yes, Governor, I do.::Sarah Palin: I certainly don't, she was out to get me from the get-go!::Nicolle Wallace: No, she wasn't! The interview sucked because you didn't try!::Sarah Palin: What, what do you mean I didn't try?::Nicolle Wallace: You didn't fight back, like you did in the Charlie Gibson interview - when you didn't know the answers, you clawed your way back and it went fine! You just gave up!::Sarah Palin: [through gritted teeth] Nicole, it wasn't my fault; I wasn't... properly... prepped!::Nicolle Wallace: [angrily] You weren't properly prepped because you wouldn't LISTEN to us! You never LISTEN to your advisers!::Sarah Palin: [heatedly] Because you're overwhelming me with TOO MUCH INFORMATION! You know, I-I don't, I don't wanna do these interviews! I want to do what I want to do!::Nicolle Wallace: [sighs] We're just trying to help you get through this, Governor. All we want is for you to succeed.::Sarah Palin: [scoffs] Yeah, you're NOT helping! You're just screwing me up! You're telling me what to say, what to wear, how to talk... I AM NOT YOUR PUPPET! NOW I understand what Hillary meant when she said she had to find her own voice!::Nicolle Wallace: [incredulously] Yeah... cause you're just like Hillary.::Sarah Palin: You have ruined me! You have ruined my reputation! I AM RUINED IN ALASKA! [throws phone against the wall]::Nicolle Wallace: [shakes head, calls Steve Schmidt] Steve, it's Nicole. I will gladly resign if you want to blame me for Couric, but if you want me to stay, I'm back on McCain's bus tomorrow, as I never want to deal with that woman ever again!
Jack Cafferty: [news clips analyzing Sarah Palin] If John McCain wins, this woman will be one 72 year-old's heartbeat away from being President of the United States... and if that doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should.::Campbell Brown: In fairness, probably most people can't name a Supreme Court case. But most people are not campaigning to be Vice-President.::Fareed Zakaria: It's not that she doesn't know the right answer, it's that she clearly does not understand the question. This is way beyond anything we have ever seen from a national candidate.
Steve Schmidt: Name one fucking paper!
Plot
Saturday Night Live celebrates the 2008 Presidential Election with a best of clip show featuring some of the best sketches about the election. Sketches include Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton talking about the presidential nomination Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin, Hillary Clintong talking about the nomination process, Bill Clinton giving a non-endorsement of Obama on Weekend Update, George W. Bush giving an endorsement to McCain and Palin, the 2008 vice presidential debate between Biden and Palin, the CNN Univision Democratic Debate 2008, the town hall debate between Obama and McCain, and a montage of best moments. The special also features political comedy from SNL's history including Carter giving drug advise, Ronal Reagan mastermind, Perot and Stockdale in a car, a Michael Dukakis advertisement with puppets, a debate between Bush and Dukakis, and a debate with Gerald Ford. John McCain and Sarah Palin also appear.
Keywords: sketch-comedy, u.s.-president
Plot
John McCain is a poor student, except at wrestling, but toughs it out in Annapolis at the US Naval Academy with the goal of becoming a career naval officer like his father and grandfather, who were both admirals. Love at first sight leads to a marriage and children with Carole. During the Vietnam War, he's shot down and captured by the Vietcong, who torture American POWs. He resists years of torture and misery, only breaking once due to his busted limbs, and eventually returning home after five and one half years in captivity.
Keywords: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, abuse, annapolis-maryland, based-on-autobiography, based-on-memoir, based-on-true-story, dancing, embarrassment
John McCain's father gave him the courage to be a soldier. Five years as a POW gave him the courage to be a hero.
John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 United States election.
McCain followed his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture, and refused an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.
He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily four times, most recently in 2010. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain at times has had a media reputation as a "maverick" for his willingness to disagree with his party on certain issues. After being investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the Keating Five, he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He is also known for his work towards restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s, and for his belief that the war in Iraq should be fought to a successful conclusion. McCain has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, opposed spending that he considered to be pork barrel, and played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations.
James "Jay" Carney (born May 22, 1965) is President Barack Obama's second White House Press Secretary. Prior to his appointment as Press Secretary, replacing Robert Gibbs, he was director of communications to Vice President Joe Biden. Carney previously served as Washington Bureau Chief for Time magazine, a post he held from September 2005 until December 2008, and as a regular contributor in the "roundtable" segment of ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Carney was raised in Northern Virginia, attended high school at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and earned a B.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University, graduating cum laude, in 1987. He and his wife, Claire Shipman (a senior correspondent for ABC News), live in Washington, D.C., with their son and daughter.
After being hired as a reporter for The Miami Herald in 1987, Carney joined Time magazine as its Miami Bureau Chief in 1989. Carney worked as a correspondent in Time's Moscow Bureau for three years, covering the collapse of the U.S.S.R.. He came to Washington in 1993 to report on the Bill Clinton White House.
Christopher Wallace may refer to:
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior United States Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to then President George W. Bush.
The son of an Army Air Corps serviceman, Kerry was born in Aurora, Colorado. He attended boarding school in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and went on to graduate from Yale University class of 1966, where he majored in political science. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1966 and, during 1968-1969, served a four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a Swift Boat. For that service he was awarded several combat medals that include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in which he served as a nationally recognized spokesperson and as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam war. During that period, he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs where he deemed United States war policy in Vietnam to be the cause of "war crimes".
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин; IPA: [vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] ( listen); born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician who has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008 and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin also serves as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when president Boris Yeltsin resigned in a surprising move. Putin won the 2000 presidential election; in 2004 he was re-elected for a second term lasting until 7 May 2008.
Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term. After his successor Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election, Putin was nominated by Medvedev to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took office on 8 May 2008 and a period of so-called "tandemocracy" followed. In September 2011, Putin and Medvedev agreed he should seek a third, non-consecutive term in the 2012 presidential election, which he won in the first round on 4 March 2012.