McCain picked Palin from 26 possible VPs in 'high risk, high reward' move

Last summer, about-to-be Republican presidential nominee John McCain had a long list of 26 possible vice presidential running mates. None of them knew he or she was being considered.

Ronald Reagan's former counsel A.B. Culvahouse was in charge of the candidate partner vetting process and helped the Arizona senator pare down the list. But McCain, Culvahouse revealed Friday, was intrigued by Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old Alaska governor and mother of five.

That was understandable, the former presidential aide said. Even the most cynical of his 30 Washington, D.C., attorney vetters were impressed by her presence. "She fills up a room," Culvahouse told a Washington meeting of the Republican National Lawyers Assn. (See video below.) Even difficult questions, he said, she knocked "out of the park" during the vice president interview process.

The lawyer said standard Washington procedure would have been to choose a running mate with the best political resume. But, he said, he had an arrangement with McCain: that he'd have direct communications with the senator and that McCain would not select any partner unvetted by Culvahouse.

His orders from McCain were to find "someone who had the capacity to be president," Culvahouse said. His team produced 50-page reports on each candidate, drawing from their own investigations and the potential candidate's detailed answers to 74 questions, including "Have you ever been unfaithful?"

Near decision time, Culvahouse said, McCain asked him for the "bottom line" on Palin.

"John," Culvahouse replied, "high risk, high reward."

To which McCain, the former Vietnam attack pilot who flew off and landed on aircraft carriers before spending more than six years as a POW, replied, "You shouldn't have told me that. I've been a risk-taker all my life."

Culvahouse said the McCain campaign knew everything about Palin going in, including the pregnancy of her unmarried teenage daughter, Bristol.

Culvahouse said Palin would have been "a great vice president," while admitting she wouldn't have been ready by Jan. 20. But, he added, hardly anyone would be ready, except perhaps the very experienced Dick Cheney.

The full Culvahouse remarks are on the video below, and our blogging colleague Mark Silva has more details over at the Swamp.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Joseph Kazcmarek / Associated Press  (McCain and Palin greet fans in Pennsylvania).

Sarah Palin hits the speaking trail again -- but only briefly

Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin makes a rare one-day speaking foray out of Alaska this week.

Doesn't everybody want to go to Indiana in April?

Some politicians way up there in Alaska are apparently grumbling because the legislative session isn't over yet and Juneau might shrivel up even more. According to the Anchorage Daily News, only nine of the 419 bills introduced this session have completed their journey through the Legislature, which must be the governor's fault. The session is due to end Sunday.

This slow legislative progress could mean one of two or three only things: 1) like every other legislature composed of humans, they are leaving a lot until the last minute, 1a) Alaska already has enough laws and these elected folks have finally realized it, or 2) some Alaska politicians on the losing ends of Palin's successful 2005-06 political insurgency are trying to score some points.

And if it also bruises Palin for a possible 2012 GOP presidential try, so much the better.

"She is putting her national political ambitions ahead of the needs of Alaska," said Democratic state chair Patti Higgins.

Palin's office released a somewhat defensive statement Monday, saying that she had long ago consulted with legislative leaders about this 36-hour absence, and none of them expressed any concerns then.

Her statement (see full text below) also pointed out that the GOP vice presidential candidate last year has spent far more time in the state capital during the session than her two immediate predecessors, Republican Frank Murkowski and Democrat Tony Knowles.

By Palin's count, Knowles was absent an average of 38 days during sessions and Murkowski 45 days. Palin has been out of Juneau 14 days, the statement said.

Having spent virtually all of last fall out of state in the presidential campaign, Palin, who faces a re-election campaign next year, appears sensitive to charges of inattention to state business. Although she did make a quick weekend trip to Washington for a banquet this winter, she turned down all media interview requests, which helped avoid calling attention to her presence there.

And she ended up not being a speaker at a major Republican fundraiser there in June, where she was replaced by Newt Gingrich, who is slowly re-emerging from image rehab.

Palin is scheduled to speak Thursday night in Evansville, Ind. to a sold-out Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner and the next morning at a breakfast for a nonprofit group of parents with Down syndrome children, like Palin's son Trig. The expenses are to be paid by the governor's PAC.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

One day in the official life of Vice President Joe Biden

Loyal Ticket readers may recall we've mentioned once or twice that Barack Obama was just a youngster somewhere when Joe Biden took the oath of office to become a United States senator from the little bitty state of Delaware.

Today, things have changed. Today, Joe Biden is no longer one of 100 U.S. senators. He's one of one vice president.

And you'll no doubt recall that on that special day last summer when Biden's wife was at the dentist's office getting a root canal and he went with her because she calls herself Dr. Biden, then-Sen. Obama telephoned and then-Sen. Joe said "yes" as the future president finished offering him the job.

Biden recalled later that a condition of his accepting the No. 2 position, which was important when dangerous Dick Cheney held it, was that Biden be a major partner in the work of change that the young president planned to totally transform America by the trillions.

Although being an ex-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden probably should have tipped off his new boss that they don't speak Austrian in Austria.

Anyway, The Ticket regularly publishes the schedule for that very important office so that the curious public can peek in that window and keep track of the man who invented the term "drug czar" and could become president if necessary someday. Some days Biden's schedule is a blur of activities.

Here's his official schedule for today:

DAILY GUIDANCE FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT, FRIDAY APRIL 10th, 2009

The Vice President will be in Wilmington, DE. No public events are scheduled.     ###"

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Joshua Roberts / Bloomberg News

Sarah Palin defies conservative advice, names woman to Supreme Court

It's a long way away, so you don't hear it much in the lower 48. But some Alaska conservatives are scratching their heads this week over Gov. Sarah Palin's choice for a new state Supreme Court justice.

Which pleases others there and elsewhere.

Not because Palin's recent pick is only the second female such judge in the state's history -- Anchorage Superior Court Judge Morgan Christen. The current Supreme Court Chief Justice, Dana Fabe, was appointed 13 years ago by then-Gov. Tony Knowles, whose 2006 Democratic gubernatorial comeback bid was squashed by Palin's Republican reform surge.

But of the two selections offered by the independent citizens' commission, the Alaska Judicial Council, Christen was deemed the more "activist" judge by at least one state conservative organization.

The Alaska Family Council, a conservative group that opposes same-sex marriage and abortion, favored another Superior Court judge, Eric Smith of Palmer, saying he would be more inclined to resist activist judges on the five-member court. The council did not explain its opposition to Christen.

The 47-year-old Christen, who replaces a justice facing mandatory retirement at age 70, served on the board of Planned Parenthood in the 1990s before the group began performing abortions in 2003. As a career lawyer, Christen was also active for years in the Rotary Club, United Way and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Alaska.

Palin, as she has at other times in her political career this decade,  displayed an independent streak, disregarding the outside advice, and went with her own choice. During last year's presidential campaign, Palin was seen as the conservative half of the Republican ticket with Sen. John McCain.

A Palin statement said the 45-year-old governor had "every confidence that Judge Christen has the experience, intellect, wisdom and character to be an outstanding Supreme Court justice."

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: At top, Justice Morgan Christen. Credit: Anchorage Chamber of Commerce. Lower photo, Judge Eric Smith. Credit: KTUU-TV

Text of VP Biden's once-top-secret union speech (except still no cameras)

Vice President Joe Biden, who's been touting the Obama administration's commitment to government transparency so much that he couldn't remember the recovery.gov website name last week, gave a speech to the AFL-CIO's Executive Council today where few working people can afford to go -- the newly-redecorated Fontainebleu Hotel in Miami Beach. (Discount rooms available now online for $399 -- each night.)

And the vice president's appearance brought a whole new level of opacity to transparency.

The vice president's remarks were originally closed to all media. Outcry. According to some sources, the VP's office felt the pressure and agreed to allow a pool of print reporters and the usual White House transcript. But still no cameras for a replayable video record of remarks to one of the administration's largest group of supporters who want the card-check legislation passed (suspending secret ballots on union affiliations).

Then the questions, stoked as always by idle, bored reporters barred from the scene. Whose idea was the closed session? The union said the VP. The VP said the union. The union then said it was a joint decision. Play it safe.

Here's a Biden quote: "Mr. President, you know, you go home with them that brung you to the dance. Well, you all brought me to the dance a long time ago. And it's time we start dancing, man. It's time we start dancing. (Applause.)"

So you can easily understand why the Democratic administration would want to keep such hugely embarrassing comments secret. Say what?

That (Applause.) line appears at the end of many, many paragraphs. They love the guy, according to the transcript, which we're publishing below in its entirety. How embarrassing for a new Democratic presidency to be seen as popular among labor leaders.

This is the transcript that nobody would have given a fig about. Except the Triple-A league move of a rookie White House. Even the most scatter-brained teenager quickly figures out, it's the closed room door that makes parents most want to enter.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Fontainebleau Hotel

Sarah Palin turns 45 today. How are you celebrating?

Well, today is the Big 4-5 Sarah Louise Palin, the lipstick-wearing, pit-bull hockey mom whom some folks still can't get enough of -- and others long ago did. (But, look, you're still here reading!)

Alaska's youngest and first-ever female governor, she keeps popping up in the news for one thing or another. And we tend to follow her at the SarahPalin4President and at the SarahPalinBlog.  Here, for those who are intrigued by her, is a birthday gift bag of recent Sarah Stuff. (For those who don't like her, you know you're gonna read it anyway):

At last report, Palin's husband, Todd, is running fifth, 61 minutes behind the leaders, in the Tesoro Iron Dog snowmobile -- er, snow-machine -- race, which he has won four times. It's one week long in weather that sometimes warms up to minus-40. So, he probably won't be bringing home fresh-cut flowers for SP tonight. UPDATE: Todd finished sixth in a little over 41 hours.)

The Alaska Senate recently found Todd and nine others in contempt for ignoring subpoenas in the now-dead Troopergate investigation, but there's no punishment involved. The state's attorney general, Talis Colberg, who advised Palin and others during the investigation, resigned Tuesday over the controversy.

Nevermind Palin's own reported upcoming book, Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions is about to publish "Trail Blazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin" by People's Lorenzo Benet.

A few leaked details concern how her hand got crushed years ago while helping her commercial fisher husband and how important Aug. 29 has become in Palin's life: wedding anniversary, John McCain's birthday and the day he announced her pick as his VP running mate that so energized the GOP's conservative base and many Republican donors.

And there's always talk of a movie.

The Republican governor recently launched her own SarahPAC to collect donations to finance her own political travel (Iowa's a long ways from Wasilla, you know) and to support like-minded conservative candidates elsewhere.

Palin did travel to Washington for the recent Alfalfa Club dinner of alleged D.C. elites (taking an overnight charter to avoid missing a day from state work), where she talked up Alan Greenspan and others, apparently impressing some longtime Republicans like Fred Malek.

And she also took the occasion to talk up Alaska's new planned pipeline with fellow dinner guest Barack Obama.

But with a re-election campaign looming next year, Palin turned down a blizzard of media interview requests to play down her Alaska absence. She's also decided against traveling back to Washington for the upcoming CPAC meeting but will address the conservative faithful via a videotape, which they do have now up in Alaska ever since electricity came in the other day.

--Andrew Malcolm

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A Sarah Palin-Rick Perry GOP ticket in '12? She endorses him in Texas primary

And you thought we were done with elections for a good while.

The decision by Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to go home and challenge incumbent GOP Gov. Rick Perry has already launched the statewide primary campaign in the nation's second-largest state, even now fully 13 months before that election.

Now Sarah Palin, the Republican governor of the nation's first-largest state and the party's VP nominee last fall, has weighed in to support her gubernatorial colleague, Perry.

In a letter distributed this week to nearly 11,000 members of the Texas Federation of Republican Women, longtime supporters of Hutchison, Palin follows the Reagan Rule and does not attack Hutchison by name. But she strongly touts the "true conservative" credentials of Perry, who befriended the Alaskan chief executive in the Republican Governors Assn. when he was chairman last year.

"He walks the walk of a true conservative," Palin writes. "And he sticks by his guns -- and you know how I feel about guns."

As is the case for most party primaries, Texas' will be a struggle for the far reaches of the faithful, who have historically been much more likely to turn out in a spring election. Palin praises Perry's stand against federal bailouts and his opposition to abortion.

"Not every child is born into ideal circumstances," Palin adds, "but every life is sacred. Rick Perry knows this -- it is at the core of his being."

On his respected Trail Blazers blog, longtime Texas politics observer Wayne Slater wonders out loud: "With GOP super-star Sarah endorsing national party wannabe Rick, could a Palin-Perry 2012 ticket be in our future?"

It could make sense. Republican national tickets typically do much better with governors than legislators. Texas is a rich source of conservative political donors. And it would get the GOP back with a genuine Southerner on the ticket, historically a strong suit and one that would help counter Barack Obama's likely choice of current Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, the new head of the Democratic National Committee, to replace the aging Joe Biden, who'll be 70 by then.

There are, however, two minor matters for the Alaskan and Texan to address first: Both members of a potential P2 '12 ticket need to win reelection to their statehouses next year. Other than that, it's an easy straight shot.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo Republican Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Sarah Palin of Alaska at the Republican Governors Assn. meeting in Miami, November 2008.

Credit: Getty Images

Oh, c'mon, laugh! Pres. Obama does have big ears

Breaking News: President Obama spoke in public Sunday and did not utter one newly depressing economic statistic. Not one.

He said nothing about us living in the worst economic times since Joe Biden invented television during the Hoover administration. In fact, as some of us uncovered our ears and crept out from behind the couch, the new president actually smiled on-camera. No, really.

He wished everyone should enjoy the Super Bowl. And said he would not be waving a Terrible Towel during his White House game party because he might need the votes of some legislator guests.

Obama might be careful with his daily dose of national depression. Jimmy Carter, the last Democrat to breeze into Washington as an alleged outsider and the anti-Republican, only got one term. Why? 

Because when he started talking about our national "malaise" too much, Carter's popularity plummeted, opening the political door wide for Ronald Reagan's sunny Republican optimism. Carter got some bad news of his own in November of 1980. Reagan got two terms and his VP one more for good luck.

Studies during the recent campaign showed that late-night comedians, almost 2-1 over Obama, chose to make jokes about Republican John McCain, especially the age of the former POW. They clearly shied away from the African American Democrat, his immense ears and anything else that might get a laugh. When late-night comedy did attempt humor about Obama, it was often to poke safe fun at his sycophantic media.

Rare now are the satirical portrayals of Obama like this photo from the wonderful Wonkette.com or cracks about Obama's earnest but mediocre golf and bad bowling.

So we share with Ticket readers this morning a perceptive article from Sunday's L.A. Times by our sometimes blogging buddy here, James Rainey. Jim writes about the surplus of earnestness and deficit of humor our nation is also suffering these days.

Have you noticed it? The muted studio audience reaction when Jon Stewart riffs on President Obama. The pained look the Leader of the Free World gets when his loose cannon vice president cracks wise about, say, the chief justice of the United States.

Comedian Andy Borowitz has felt it in dozens of angry e-mails.

They come flowing in, just because his website -- www.borowitzreport.com -- wove a provocative double entendre (which my editor wouldn't let me repeat) about Obama's economic package and tweaked the chief executive for attempting to "Calm Americans With Series of Boring Speeches."

And Jim's dead-on.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Wonkette.com (Obama as Honest Abe)

GOP countdown to 2012: Sarah Palin forms a PAC

It's the surest sign yet that Alaska's Republican Gov. Sarah Palin intends at least to be in position for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination contest.

Like others presumed to have their eye on the party nod -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arkansas ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee -- Palin has set up a PAC -- SarahPAC.

The creation of such a financial entity commits her to nothing. But such a political action committee will allow Palin to position herself to compete by legally collecting donations to travel and speak on her own behalf. (Iowa is a long snow machine ride from Wasilla, Alaska.)

It also will permit her to raise and distribute campaign donations to like-minded GOP supporters seeking office. That could earn her some valuable political owsies come campaign time in the Hawkeye state with the race now less than 29 months away. (Thank goodness you have blogs such as this to help keep you ready.)

The 44-year-old mother of five and reform candidate faces a gubernatorial reelection campaign next year in Alaska. Or Palin might choose the more dangerous path of a primary challenge for the Alaska Senate seat currently held by Lisa Murkowski, daughter of the GOP ex-governor that Palin unseated in her 2005-2006 reform drive.

Palin was the surprise vice presidential pick of Sen. John McCain of Arizona in last fall's general election campaign. As a video refresher, scroll down or click on the "Read more" line to see Palin speaking. She electrified GOP audiences, especially conservatives and especially at the St. Paul national convention, but stumbled badly later in media interviews. Like GOP President Gerald Ford more than 30 years ago, Palin was mercilessly caricatured on "Saturday Night Live," though Palin's own appearance on the show brought the highest ratings in more than a decade.

Palin's new PAC website went up Tuesday and shows an image of the nation's largest and only Arctic state smack dab in the middle of the lower 48. It offers biographical information, the ability to donate and register for free e-mail newsletters. It says she's "dedicated to building America's future, supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation."

It adds: "SarahPAC believes the Republican Party is at the threshold of an historic renaissance that will build a better future for all" with healthcare, government reform and education as key goals.

Speaking of renaissance, the Republican National Committee opens its important winter meeting in Washington today with the election for a new party chairman set for Friday. (The field consists of six candidates, including two African Americans and the incumbent, Mike Duncan.)

The winner will be among the most prominent public faces for the GOP as it seeks to rebuild after two consecutive congressional thumpings, not to mention the McCain-Palin defeat by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The Democratic National Committee has already cleaned house, despite the historic victory, by dumping Vermont's ex-Gov. Howard Dean for current Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. He's a hand-picked favorite of Obama, who will have the Spanish-speaking, Roman Catholic Southern lawyer ready as a possible fresh VP partner come 2012, when Joe Biden will be about two weeks shy of 70.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: SarahPAC.com   

Still no arrests and little interest in arson at Sarah Palin's church, as reopening nears

The ongoing Sarah Palin blogosphere is abuzz this week with some good news and some bad news about the chief executive hockey mom with the five kids, one grandchild and lipstick.

The governor's recent state budget drew favorable reviews from state newspapers. But the big news is that Palin's home church, the Wasilla Bible Church, which attracted considerable media attention and controversy during her run as Republican vice presidential candidate and subsequently was torched by an arsonist(s) last month, will reopen for services this Sunday.

The congregation, which moved into its church building just 31 months ago, has been meeting in a nearby middle school. But the pastor, Larry Kroon, now reports that repairs are sufficiently accomplished that worshipers can return to the main building Feb. 1, their own local Super Bowl Sunday.

He also reports that a special volunteer group of parishioners has had to be organized to handle the volume of handwritten thank-yous necessary to address the many people and organizations that reached out to the Alaska church with good wishes and even donations after the apparent hate crime.

While women and children were participating in a Friday night crafts group in early December, someone set a massive fire with an accelerant by the front door. Everyone escaped uninjured through other exits, but it took firefighters from several communities most of the night to quell the flames in minus-20-degree weather.

Gov. Palin publicly apologized the same day in case the attack was "in any way connected to the undeserved negative attention the church has received" from her participation in Sen. John McCain's GOP presidential campaign.

"Someone lit a match," said Kroon, "and God came back with a whole lot of grace." (See the local KTUU-TV video below.)

Over on the ever-alert Sarah Palin blog, they're asking the provocative question:

What if, oh, say, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago had been assaulted by arsonists after videos of his controversial anti-American sermons surfaced last year and Democrat Barack Obama supported him in a widely hailed Philadelphia speech on race? Does anyone think that nearly seven weeks would pass with no major media coverage or government investigative progress report on such a crime?

Yes, Wasilla is 40 miles farther away than Anchorage from major urban centers in the lower 48. But ...

"This is an ugly case of media bias again directed at Sarah Palin," the blog charges, "and the church is quite literally collateral damage. It was the media attacks and attention on this church that may have made it a target and, if that is true, the media fanned the flames of hate. To follow up that irresponsibility by remaining silent after the crime is all but despicable."

What do you think?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Hat Tip: Sarah Palin for President blog.

Top photo: Wasilla Bible Church. Credit: Al Grillo / Associated Press

Bottom photo: Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin. Credit: EPA