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Monday, November 23, 2009

Palin adviser angrily denied allegation from McCain's top Florida campaign fundraiser.


An adviser to Sarah Palin angrily denied tonight the allegation from a Hispanic ally of John McCain that Palin canceled a key interview with Univision host Jorge Ramos because she wasn't prepared on the subject matter.
Palin "does not understand issues concerning Hispanics and Latin America," Ana Navarro, a top McCain fundraiser in Florida who was brought in to prepare Palin, said Sunday.
Jason Recher, a senior campaign adviser to Palin who is now assisting on her book tour, turned the accusation back on the McCain campaign, and expressed some of the Palin camp's outrage over the steady stream of criticism from former McCain aides."It’s unfortunate that [Navaro] feels the need to once again go in contrast to the reputation of the man she supposedly served," Recher said. "This is not straight talk, this is bunk."

By Recher's account, Palin was ready and willing to do the interview -- but McCain advisers canceled it on the grounds not that she was unfamiliar with the issues, but that she was unfamiliar with McCain's nuanced record on the issues.
"The whole point of Ana Navarro being there was not to prep on Hispanic issues. The whole reason for her being there was to prep on John McCain's stance on Hispanic issues," said Recher, referring to the Arizona senator's early support for an immigration reform measure, a position he abandoned during the Republican primary.
Palin, he said, had always been ready and eager to talk to Ramos. When she finally did, McCain's top advisers were "over the moon" about her performance, said Recher, who was present with Palin through the campaign. Recher, who called from Palin's stop today in Birmingham, Ala., said they'd heard little on the book tour about the back-and-forths with former staffers, although Palin's characterizations of them have drawn much of the media attention around her book.
"We have seen nothing but amazingly positive crowds. No one is talking about these former McCain advisers leaking these stories," he said. "Nobody’s sitting around talking about the 2008 campaign except for the people who lost it." (source)

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