Let’s face it, when you’re running for president at 72 years of age, your main focus would be to put a competent vice presidential pick in line to take over as your replacement. Not in the Bizarro world of “down the rabbit hole” politics.
Keep in mind that the following list of problems would unquestionably sound the death knell for any Democratic candidate for anything, including dog catcher. But when applied to Republicans, they are inconsequential. According to NY Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller:
Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.
It was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner;
That she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede;
That Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.
The team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described. McCain had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months. “They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign.
Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.
The questions swirling around Ms. Palin … brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.
“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.
Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her. “I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called. I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”
And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.
State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.
1996, the year Sarah Palin ran for mayor and Wasilla got its first local lesson in wedge politics. Ms. Palin’s first months in office here were so jarring — and so alienating — that an effort was made to force a recall. About 100 people attended a meeting to discuss the effort, which was covered in the local press, but the idea was dropped.
Shortly after becoming mayor, Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question. The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. The public works director, city planner, museum director and others were forced out. The police chief, Irl Stambaugh, was later fired outright. Ms. Palin also upended the town’s traditional ways with a surprise edict: No employee was to talk to the news media without her permission.
In her second term as mayor, she pushed for a half-cent raise in the local sales tax to pay for a $15 million sports complex. Ms. Palin also began annual trips to Washington to lobby for federal money (earmarks) for specific initiatives, including rail projects and a mental health center.
Just as Palin terminated employees on her way into office, she also let some go on the way out, including Mr. Cramer. When Palin completed her second and final term, in 2002, her stepmother-in-law, Faye Palin, was running to succeed her. It seemed like a good idea, except that Faye Palin supported abortion rights and was registered as unaffiliated, not Republican, people who remember the race said. Sarah Palin sided instead with Dianne Keller, a religious conservative and an ally on the City Council. Ms. Keller won.
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