When I last left the Internet for a delightful Labor Day barbecue, the questioned raised about Sarah Palin were merely the stuff of blog comment sections and the like. It took what ought to be a private occurrence of the Governor's 17 year-old daughter's pregnancy, but the traditional media has now caught on that this pick is exceedingly strange, and that the only people who knew less about her than the American public were John McCain's Vice Presidential vetting team.
* The news that Palin once backed the Bridge to Nowhere went national.
* It emerged that Palin has links to the bizarro Alaska Independence Party, which harbors the goal of seceding from the union that McCain and Palin seek to lead.
* The news broke that as governor, Palin relied on an earmark system she now opposes. Taken along with the Bridge to Nowhere stuff, this threatens to undercut her reformist image, something that was key to her selection as McCain's Veep candidate.
* The news broke that Palin's 17-year-old daughter became pregnant out of wedlock at a time when the conservative base had finally started rallying behind McCain's candidacy.
* Barely moments after McCain advisers put out word that McCain had known of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, the Anchorage Daily News revealed that Palin's own spokesperson hadn't known about it only two days ago.
* A senior McCain adviser at the Republican convention was forced into the rather embarrassing position of arguing that McCain had known about the pregnancy "last week" -- without saying what day last week he knew about it.
* It came out that Republican lawyers are up in Alaska vetting Palin -- now, more than 72 hours after it was announced that she'd been picked.
* Palin lawyered up in relation to the trooper-gate probe in Alaska -- a move that ensures far more serious attention to the story from the major news orgs.
There's actually more. The lawyer she hired in the trooper-gate probe - which is being paid for by state taxpayers - asked for all documents from the investigator, a discovery request which may make sense in a grand jury but not in an independent legislative investigation. ABC is on the case of the Alaska Independence Party, which is kind of a big deal - a secessionist group which possibly has ties to separatist militias. The earmark story has gone national - turns out that as mayor she had a personal lobbyist that secured around $27 million in federal earmarks. There are at least 10 McCain operatives up in Anchorage at this point, and didn't get there until THURSDAY, the day before the choice was announced. And major media is asking the forbidden questions:
While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, 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.
Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina said that he had heard no discussion about removing Ms. Palin from the ticket. In fact, he said, he thought her daughter’s pregnancy would not hurt her with voters.
What's notable is that the media is asking the question of if she'll be removed from the ticket. It's not a far reach to go from if to when. When the traditional media smells blood in the water, ideology goes out the window. Check out Campbell Brown, married to Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor Campbell Brown, eviscerating a McCain spokesman.
Focus groups are weighing in with, shall we say, concern, and what's more, major media is reporting on them. And the secessionist party thing is so hot to handle that McCain's camp is not commenting on it. They tried to dump a lot of this news on the Labor Day holiday with a major hurricane hitting land and it didn't work. They are completely off message, the revamped convention (which already lost a day's worth of attacking Obama) is at a crossroads, and the questions from the talking heads will be all about Palin.
I actually hope he keeps her on the ticket at this point, this is too entertaining...