Her acceptance of the Republican nomination for veep isn’t ‘official’ yet, but one wonders how long this ridiculousness can keep going on. Besides the circus surrounding her daughter, Bristol, there’s a second source saying that Palin belonged to a fringe group that wanted Alaska to secede from the United States, her retaining an attorney for her alleged involvement in ‘Troopergate‘, and her being for the infamous ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ in Alaska before being against it.
If the McCain camp was going to name such a problematic candidate, you would think they would have better handled her rollout on the national stage, right? A pretty damning story in the New York Times today, though, suggests that McCain’s camp didn’t know how much baggage Palin brought with her, because they hadn’t done any vetting.
People familiar with the process said Ms. Palin had responded to a standard form with more than 70 questions. Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.
Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, said in an e-mail message that Ms. Palin had been interviewed by Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., a veteran Washington lawyer in charge of the vice-presidential vetting process for Mr. McCain, as well as by other lawyers who worked for Mr. Culvahouse. Mr. Salter did not respond to an e-mail message asking if Ms. Palin had told Mr. Culvahouse and his lawyers that her daughter was pregnant.
In Alaska, several state leaders and local officials said they knew of no efforts by the McCain campaign to find out more information about Ms. Palin before the announcement of her selection, Although campaigns are typically discreet when they make inquiries into potential running mates, officials in Alaska said Monday they thought it was peculiar that no one in the state had the slightest hint that Ms. Palin might be under consideration.
“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.
Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.
“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”
The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.
State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.
A number of Republicans said the McCain campaign had to some degree tied its hands in its effort to keep the selection process so secret.
“If you really want it to be a surprise, the circle of people that you’re going to allow to know about it is going to be small, and that’s just the nature of it,” said Dan Bartlett, a former counselor to President Bush.
As bungled as all this has been, it could actually get a lot worse. While her bowing out is still an option, the imagery would reflect so poorly on John McCain that it’s likely that she’ll face a tremendous amount of pressure from inside the campaign to stick it out. That could mean more weird revelations, or just as bad for McCain, a candidate too distracted in the lead-up to the Vice Presidential debates to turn in a solid performance. A bad showing there would only embolden Palin’s critics, and necessarily, those of John McCain.
