Did McCain actually vet Palin? ?

Question

It seems he could have picked a much stronger running mate (Romney or Pawlenty). Why Palin?

Answer 1

McCain wanted someone who could possibly pick up sore Hillary supporters. He also knew there are many conservative Christians who would agree with her stance on pro life and abstinence education.

Trust me, I think it's a stupid pick too.

Answer 2

"Vet" is hardly the right word.  

Answer 3

Palin is a winner,This is change Not Obama bullS22t

Answer 4

I don't think he did.  But if he did, I'm sure he's regretting it now.

Answer 5

Yes. she was, but what about Obama?  Who vetted him?There is a lawsuit now in federal court claiming he is not an American and that his B/C is a forgery?

Answer 6

wait till november 5th and then you'll know.

Answer 7

  I dont think he did palin yet. they will have plenty of time to get intimate .  

  big white house. some wine , turn the lights down . send the secret service to the store to get something.

  he could get lucky

Answer 8

Probably not yet

oh wait, I read that as pet,

either way I stand by my answer.

Answer 9

They thought he could pull in Hillary voters simply by choosing a woman.  It's offensive, really.

Answer 10

Palin was just McCain's first choice.  Either Romney or Pawlenty will be on the ticket by the end of next week.  Even though he says she was checked out, it seems like they did not look hard enough.  As GWB would say: "Heck of a job Brownie!"

Answer 11

Karl Rove...McCain is a yes man.

Answer 12

Yes.  The story is that  Mc Cain vetted her at the last minute and alone without getting advice.  He was hoping that he could pick up support of Hillary Democrats.  Well, I'm a Hillary Democrat and I truly question the man's judgment.  I think that he has gone senile.  But I have recently found out what a snake in the grass McCain is and I could not care less about him. McCain likes to illustrate his moral fiber by referring to his five years  as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year- old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children. But there is another Mrs. McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator's presidential campaign.

She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain's three eldest children. She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam's famous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news. But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a

handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969.

Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter. Today, she stands at just 5' 4" in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.'

In 1979 - while still married to Carol - he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage. Some of McCain's acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centered womanizer who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to 'play the field'. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans' rights, said: 'I have been following John McCain's career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is -deceit.'

When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it. Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better."  

McCain is the classic opportunist. He's always reaching for attention and glory,' he said. After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona . And the rest is history.'

Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, and a former presidential candidate, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel - even by the standards of modern politics.

Answer 13

Romney would have been their strongest choice. He's got that young Regan thing going for him, and republicans long for the days of Regan.  

Why Palin?  She's a wild card that shakes things up and she might pay off but the back lash has been intense.

Answer 14

According to CNN he is curently vetting her... after he announced her as his running he said that he had the fbi vet her only for the fbi to release a statement saying they did not, so sunday night they reported that Mccain sent 10 people to alaska to do the job better. Seems maybe the decision was made in haste.

Answer 15

He selected Palin becuase it is his belief that she can bring in the female votes. However, this is going to back fire on him. I agree, he should have selected either Romney or Pawlenty.  

Answer 16

I don't think he did.  I strongly believe McCain was going to nominate Lieberman.  The party boss flatly rejected this, and he had to scramble to find a VP prior to the RNC convention.  Given that Sarah Palin is his choice, I will assume the no one else wanted to be on the McCain ticket.  He could not have use Romney due to him being McCain's harshest critic during the Primaries, Democrats have a lot of footage they could have used against McCain.

"With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He 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. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”

The New York Times, which endorsed McCain, ran a story that the vetting team just return to Alaska yesterday to start  a thorough investigation on Sarah Palin's past.

"Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said 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. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin."

I think the McCain campaign was blind sighted.

Answer 17

Romney wouldn't have gotten the southern vote.

Pawlenty wouldn't have energized the base.

Huckabee was disliked by financial conservatives.

Condi would be seen in an even worse light...

Liberman would have lost his base...

Ridge would have lost the social conservative base.

Rule one in politics... you must motivate the base... One thing Palin did is create media... frankly the media coverage gap between McCain and Obama is shrinking because of his pick...

First it was a surprise.

They also have the she is a woman angle... will she get hillary votes.

They have the newborn baby to talk about...

Her experience (which I think the republicans actually like because they throw it back on Obama)

They have the daughter...

etc... etc... etc...

If you believe the concept that all publicity is good publicity... she's actually a great choice...

Now that doesn't mean... it's actually true that all publicity is good publicity... but they picked the candidate that seems to have gotten more then what any of the others could have got... maybe short of Liberman.