"Can I call you Joe?" - an excerpt from Going Rogue

Numerous media outlets are reporting than an upcoming 60 Minutes feature promises "revelations" from the 2008 presidential campaign. This feature includes a segment with erstwhile McCain campaign flack Steve Schmidt. Yeah, these guys don't seem to hesitate to pile on Sarah Palin (and let's face it these limp McCain staffers have spent the last 14 months trying to slough off blame for their election loss onto Sarah). Don't listen to those brain-damaged ex-McCain staffers. . . read what Sarah Palin wrote in her biography instead.

"During [debate] rehearsals, I accidentally called Randy [Scheunemann who was playing the part of Senator Biden] "Senator O'Biden" -- a slip-of-the-lip combination of Obama and Biden. The blunder struck too often, even tripping up campaign staffers. (Jay Leno later made the same slip on his new talk show, so we were in good company.) We laughed about it but knew that if I said it even once during the debate, it would be disastrous.

Then somebody said, "You ought to just call him Joe."

"Oh, I can't just call him Joe!" I said. Senator Biden was a senior statesman. He'd been sitting in a U.S. Senate seat since I was nine years old. I believed calling him by his first name without his permission would be disrespectful.

Randy seemed to read my thoughts and offered a solution. "In every debate, you cross the stage and shake hands with your opponent," he said. "When you shake hands, just ask him for permission to call him Joe. He's certainly going to say yes, because he's a gentleman."

So that's what we decided I would do. We had no idea my mic would already be hot when I walked onstage, crossed over to his turf, and said, "Can I call you Joe?"

The "expert" postdebate analysis was that my question was a cleverly devised strategy to disarm my opponent. Yeah, right. [Going Rogue page 289]"
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