The Post has a new article out, the gist of which is that far from being a last minute choice who possibly wasn’t extensively vetted, Gov. Palin was a top contender in the veep search for some time and was extensively vetted. “Nobody was vetted less or more than anyone in the final stages, and John had access to all that information and made the decision,” Campaign Manager Rick Davis told the Post. “It’s really not much more complicated than that.”
I would not call the piece credulous necessarily because the quotes and comments are all attributed to anonymous McCain aides, who have an obvious interest in knocking down any perception that Palin was a hasty, panic pick.
But leafing through articles out of Alaska, there’s good reason to doubt these claims that Palin received an extensive vetting.
One bit of info from the Anchorage Daily News …
Former House Speaker Gail Phillips, a Republican political leader who has clashed with Palin in the past, was shocked when she heard the news Friday morning with her husband, Walt.
“I said to Walt, ‘This can’t be happening, because his advance team didn’t come to Alaska to check her out,” Phillips said.
Phillips has been active in the Ted Stevens re-election steering committee and remains in close touch with Sen. Lisa Murkowski and other party leaders, and she said nobody had heard anything about McCain’s people doing research on his prospective running mate.
“We’re not a very big state. People I talk to would have heard something.”
Perhaps she’s just a hostile or isn’t as plugged in as she thinks. But there’s also this.
The big bogey for Palin is the ethics investigation into possible abuse of power in her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. I can see possible reasons why the McCain camp would hesitate to make contact with Monegan. But with credible claims that she abused her office and subsequently lied about her actions, I would think the McCain camp would want to understand that case inside and out. But according to an article in today’s ADN, Monegan says that no one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him about Palin.
