Convention Coverage: St. Paul

Washington Post Says Palin Not Vetted Until Day Before Announcement

By Jill Kuraitis, 9-03-08

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz writes that John McCain knew next to nothing about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin before choosing her to be his running mate, despite the McCain campaign’s claims to the contrary.

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 2—Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday.

So according to Balz, Palin was not subjected to a background check request or personal interview till Wednesday (the day before he chose her).

Before Balz’ report was published, ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg had written that McCain knew almost nothing about Palin until he finally rejected his top three choices and decided on Palin after Sen. Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.  The campaign announced his choice the next morning, Aug. 29. 

[End of article]

I think it's safe to say, that the choice of Vice President is the most important decision that both Obama and McCain have made to date. Given all the problems in the world and domestically with our economy, energy crisis, etc one has to assume the choice of VP is all the more important in 2008. Perhaps the choice is even more important for the 72 year old McCain who's had cancer on multiple occasions. But then again, I've heard people say the same thing about Obama, out of fear that some crazy person will do something stupid if he's elected.

Given all of this, I have a real hard time believing that McCain and his campaign demonstrated responsible behavior given the importance of this election. Seems to me like their hasty pick of Palin is more of a trick or gimmick to win the election.

After all, this election isn't really about you or me because we simply don't have one voter, one vote. This election is about using tricks and gimmicks and emotional one-liners to get those 5 to 10% of the voters in specific counties and precincts to support one side or the other. Like "free-trade," that just forces these elections to become a sort of "race to the bottom." It's a shame really, and I don't think it serves our country very well.

But heck, what do I know? After all, President Bush gave his enthusiastic support to McCain last night, so that like totally makes McCain-Palin the real "change" candidates, right?

No wonder they didn't find out about the Reconquista stuff until yesterday. I hope someone is looking for old letters to the editor right now.