Did McCain team vet Palin enough?

by Frank James

ST. PAUL, Minn. - How much did Sen. John McCain's campaign vet his vice presidential choice, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin?

The available reporting in the last 24 hours suggests the McCain camp's vetting process was much more than perfunctory, much more than many critics are giving it credit for, although not as comprehensive as it could've been.

Today McCain says she was "completely vetted." I guess it depends on what the meaning of "completely" is.

The Associated Press and others reported in the last 24 hours that the McCain campaign had a large team of people searching public records, financial documents and other material, looking for bombshells.

She also had to answer a questionnaire with 70 questions, some of them "intrusive," according to the campaign, like had she ever paid for sex. And she submitted to a nearly three-hour interview with Arthur Culvahouse, a former Reagan White House top lawyerl who led McCain's VP selection process.

But here's where the holes are. it appears that interviews of her neighbors and others who know her well weren't conducted, perhaps to keep secret that she was on McCain's short list.

According to a McClatchy story:

While it's possible that some people in Alaska were called during the process, there was no sign of it. The former U.S. attorney for Alaska, Wev Shea, who enthusiastically recommended Palin back in March, said he was never contacted with any follow-up questions.

"We're not a very big state," Phillips said. "People I talk to would've heard something."

As someone who knows people who've needed security clearances for their jobs, I've been contacted by federal agents who've asked me questions about these acquaintances. So it strikes me as odd that McCain's team wouldn't have done at least as much for someone who was under consideration to be the senator from Arizona's running mate.

The reporting indicates that Palin volunteered to Culvahouse that her 17-year old daughter was pregnant and that her husband had an old DUI conviction.

The McCain campaign was also aware of the Troopergate scandal and investigation in which some allege that Palin may have abused her gubernatorial authority in order to retaliate against her ex brother-in-law who was a state trooper and his boss who evidently refused to punish the trooper.

According to the AP story:

The public search also unearthed details of the Legislature's investigation into the dismissal of Alaska's public safety commissioner, allegedly because he would not fire Palin's former brother-in-law as a state trooper.

Throughout the process, the campaign said, (McCain campaign manager RicK) Davis had multiple conversations with Palin.

So if we take what the McCain people are saying at face value, there was a fairly extensive vetting process. The campaign knew all about the issues that are now overshadowing to some degree McCain's message and his convention .

It's hard to believe that the campaign wanted to be side-tracked in this way as it's been by the Bristol Palin story or Troopergate.

But maybe the thinking was that it was worth taking the hits in order to energize the Republican base, especially the evangelicals who will be needed in places like Ohio and Missouri if McCain is to win the election.

Meanwhile, for a good overview of what past vice presidential vetting processes have looked like, this National Journal story contains some excellent details. For instance, when 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry was trying to narrow the field, his team interviewed people familiar with the candidate.

This passage illustrates just how thorough Kerry's vetting process was though, ultimately, to no avail:

Kerry and (James) Johnson (was Sen. Barack Obama's chief vetter until he was forced to leave that position) had begun with about 50 names. Then Johnson put together teams of lawyers, paralegals, and computer researchers and unleashed them on open-source searches--of public databases, Google, Nexis. From these came dossiers that were distributed to Kerry and a few members of his team. After this "political vetting," as it came to be known, Kerry winnowed the list to about 15. Each was assigned a team of two or three lawyers. Contenders were asked for references--not only people who could vouch for them but people who would criticize them. Then came the interviews. Johnson, according to sources at the time, had his lawyers use a version of the questionnaire filled out by prospective presidential appointees. Questions ranged from where they went to high school and what their spouses did for a living to when was the last time, if ever, they smoked marijuana. Elmendorf remembers the slightly surreal experience of accompanying Gephardt to the Washington headquarters of a white-shoe law firm and listening as an attorney he did not know asked Gephardt sensitive personal questions. Most of the vetters were senior lawyers at top firms in town; they tended to be virtually unknown in political circles. Many specialized in criminal law. Occasionally, Johnson asked a tax or securities specialist to help his team figure out a particularly intricate point of law.

The final question was always the same: Is there anything else that, if revealed, could cause the presidential nominee any embarrassment? Separately, Johnson turned to longtime friends, such as pollster Ed Reilly, to conduct discreet surveys of how potential running mates would help--or hurt--the ticket.