Was Palin properly vetted by McCain? Or is she just a gimmick?
By Nathan Donarum - August 29, 2008, 8:53PM
The Huffington Post has an interesting article containing two videos that raise the question: was Sarah Palin properly vetted by McCain before he chose her, or is she just a gimmick intended to attract votes he knew he couldn't get without a woman on the ticket?
Andrea Mitchell mentions in the first video that McCain and Palin had only met one time before he told her he wanted her as his running mate.
It has a second video, from Think Progress which has McCain Campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer on Fox News, being asked by host Bill Hemmer how well McCain knew Palin. Her response?
You're running flat into the wall of my ignorance here, Bill. I truly
have no indication whatsoever the extent of a relationship that exists
with the Governor of Alaska.
That doesn't really bode well, in my opinion.
As Politico reports,
McCain’s first encounter with Sarah Palin
came at a Washington meeting of the National Governors Association in
February, according to a campaign-provided reconstruction of how the
little-known Alaska governor was thrust into the national spotlight. The two discussed the
position by phone on Sunday before McCain invited Palin and her husband
to Arizona to formally make the offer.
McCain met her once in person, and spoke to her once on the phone before bringing her to Arizona to ask her in person to be his running mate.
It also doesn't help that now a video is circulating of Palin saying she doesn't even know what the Vice President does. Again, doesn't really bode well to have a Vice President who doesn't even know what the job is about or what they're supposed to do.
McCain knew her about as well when he picked her as the rest of America knows her now. That doesn't seem like sound judgment to me. It sounds like she was picked on a whim. A gimmick to attract voters McCain was having trouble attracting, and a way to take the narrative off of the DNC and Obama's historic speech.
I'm baffled, confused, and I personally find McCain's judgment more pathetic than ever on this one. If I were a Republican, I'd be calling bullshit.
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