For those of you tired of Palin posting, I am giving you fair warning to move on. (Side note, some of the posting have been outrageous. In particular, the fake pregnancy post. Guys, let's not be a party to defaming the reputation of a teenage girl.)
Who did McCain pay to vet Palin? I'm not sure who is to blame for Palin's selection as VP? Did McCain make a hasty choice or did his people not do their jobs?
Sam Stein has a piece that McCain did not request hometown newspaper archives.
I was a newspaper reporter. If you want to get the dirt on a politicians' record, you read the hometown newspaper. You talk to residents quoted in the newspaper about disagreements with the politician. Any oppositional researcher worth his or her salt would search the city council meeting notes, committee reports, and annual budget records. Apparently, the McCain vetters did not review newpaper archives.
From Sam Stein over at the Huffpost,
On Saturday, a Democrat tasked with opposition research contacted the Huffington Post with this piece of information: as of this weekend, the McCain campaign had not gone through old newspaper articles from the Valley Frontiersman, Palin's hometown newspaper.
How does he know? The paper's (massive) archives are not online. And when he went to research past content, he was told he was the first to inquire.
"No one else had requested access before," said the source. "It's unbelievable. We were the only people to do that, which means the McCain camp didn't."
Guys, this is embarrassing if true. To be fair to the McCain campaign, Stein only attributes a singular source who said no one has looked at the archives before the Obama oppositional research team arrived on the scene.
In light of these reports, the McCain camp has sought to dispel the notion that Palin was un-vetted or chosen out of purely political motives. Even though the presumptive Republican nominee met his now-running mate only once before choosing her, aides have begun arguing, the two are "kindred spirits" and have shared ideological bearings. In a Washington Post piece Sunday, Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, said the Palin chose was not a last minute call. The process, he added, was rigorous and involved sifting through financial and other personal data, as well as an FBI background check.
Okay???? In other words, McCain folks conducted a typical employment and criminal background investigation. You'd think a VP would garner greater attention from McCain. As Stein writes, checking newspaper archives is oppositon research 101.
Stay tuned. I'm sure we'll hear more about Palin's record.