McCain vetting of Palin was sloppy and incompetent

September 1, 4:46 PMProgressive Politics ExaminerJay McDonough

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The announcement John McCain had selected Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee shocked quite a few Republicans.  The evangelicals seem to be very happy, but rank and file Republicans are expressing some concern the pick was rushed, more impetuous than deliberate, and full of risk.

Here's some miscellaneous bits of news suggesting Ms. Palin wasn't the most carefully vetted of choices:

-  Before she was running against him, Sarah Palin...thought it was pretty neat that Barack Obama was edging ahead of John McCain in her usually solidly red state. After all, she said, Obama’s campaign was using the same sort of language that she had in her gubernatorial race. “The theme of our campaign was ‘new energy,’ ” she said recently. “It was no more status quo, no more politics as usual, it was all about change. So then to see that Obama—literally, part of his campaign uses those themes, even, new energy, change, all that, I think, O.K., well, we were a little bit ahead on that.” She also noted, “Something’s kind of changing here in Alaska, too, for being such a red state on the Presidential level. Obama’s doing just fine in polls up here, which is kind of wigging people out, because they’re saying, ‘This hasn’t happened for decades that in polls the D’ ”—the Democratic candidate—“ ‘is doing just fine.’ To me, that’s indicative, too. It’s the no-more-status-quo, it’s change.”  (Link)

And this:

-  ...as of this weekend, the McCain campaign had not gone through old newspaper articles from the Valley Frontiersman, Palin's hometown newspaper.  The Frontiersman did not immediately confirm the revelation. And there is no indication from the Democratic source that anything nefarious or problematic will be found in the archives. But officials with the paper did not recall inquiries by the McCain campaign.  (Link)

And this:

The Alaska Independence Party, which was formed with the goal of seceding from the union and establishing Alaska as an independent state, says that Palin addressed their 2008 convention. (Link)

From Marc Ambinder:

They've bragged that Palin opposed the famous "Bridge to Nowhere," only to learn that Palin supported the project and even told residents of Ketchikan that they weren't "nowhere" to her. After the national outcry, she decided to spend the funds allocated to the bridge for something else. Actually, maybe it's more fair to say that coincident with the national outcry, she changed her mind. The story shows her political judgment, but it is not a reformer's credential.

Likewise, though she cut taxes as mayor of Wassila, she raised the sales tax, making her hardly a tax cutter.

She denied pressuring the state's chief of public safety to fire her sister-in-law's husband even though there's mounting evidence that the impetus did indeed come from her. Ostensibly to clear her name, Palin asked her attorney general to open an independent investigation—the legislature had already been investigating. (I am told that the campaign was aware of the ethics complaint filed against her but accepts Palin's account.)

McCain's campaign seemed unaware that she supported a windfalls profits tax on oil companies and that she is more skeptical about human contributions to global warming than McCain is.

They did not know that she took trips as the mayor of Wasilla to beg for earmarks.

They did not know that she told a television interviewer this summer that she did not fully understand what it is that a vice president does.

These are the things they've already admitted they didn't know about Palin after selecting her to be the Republican VP nominee.  I don't know how else to phrase this; John McCain and his team did a crappy job of vetting the person who would become the second most powerful person in the country should McCain be elected.  Sloppy, careless, incompetent, reckless, cavalier. 

And John McCain wants to debate judgment with Barack Obama?