Palin Made an Impression From the Start

By Dan Balz and Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 31, 2008; Page A01

ST. PAUL, Minn., Aug. 30 -- Their first encounter was last February at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington. Sarah Palin was one of several governors who met privately with Sen. John McCain, by then well on his way to capturing the Republican presidential nomination, and her directness and knowledge were impressive.

Later that day, at a largely social gathering organized by his campaign, McCain spent 15 minutes in private conversation with the first-term Alaska governor. "I remember him talking about her when he came back," a McCain adviser said. "He said she was an impressive woman. He liked her."

But few people outside McCain's inner circle were privy to just how much of an impression Palin had made that day.

In the months of speculation over whom McCain would pick as his vice presidential running mate, Palin's name occasionally surfaced but rarely as a serious choice. But by the time she arrived in Arizona last Wednesday to meet first with two top McCain advisers and then the next day with the candidate and his wife, Cindy, the job was hers to lose.

"He was down to the point that if the meeting had gone well, and it was expected to go well, there was going to be an offer," said a senior adviser privy to the decision-making. "I don't think he would have invited her if it weren't his intention to offer her the job."

Far from being a last-minute tactical move or a second choice when better known alternatives were eliminated, Palin was very much in McCain's thinking from the beginning of the selection process, according to McCain's advisers. The 44-year-old governor made every cut as the first list of candidates assembled last spring was slowly winnowed. The more McCain learned about her, the more attracted he was to her as someone who shared his maverick, anti-establishment instincts.

"He looked at her like a kindred spirit," said one close adviser, who declined to be identified in order to speak more freely. "Someone who wasn't afraid to take tough positions."

Link to entire article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR2008083002377.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008083002400&s_pos=

They only met once before last week.

"Six people were involved in the secretive deliberations that led to Palin's selection: McCain; his wife, Cindy; campaign manager Davis; longtime confidant Mark Salter; senior adviser Steve Schmidt; and key strategist Charlie Black. In addition, Washington lawyer A.B. Culvahouse oversaw the vetting."

It was a Rovian echo chamber. No one outside the inner circle. No dissention. No objective input.

sparring quibs with Mittens or sitting in the bus with Gay-Crist, or Exorcist-Jingle.

I have spent more time choosing a mechanic to fix my muffler than the Maverick did choosing a VP.

was she vetted? It's kind of starting to sound like she wasn't. There was an NY Times article talking about how the Obama campaign are scrambling to fill in their dossier on Palin, and it also quotes a Republican operative saying that they were doing the same thing. If she was vetted for the job McCain's people would already know everything about her.

I'm getting the impression that McCain made an impulsive decision on this, like Bush's Harriet Myers pick.