But the questions have already forced Palin to curtail her activities as one of the party's hottest political celebrities. She has skipped the usual round of meetings with party leaders and delegates. Her only interview since McCain announced her selection Friday was with People magazine.
Still, strategists for McCain insist that none of the information that has trickled out was a surprise to the Arizona senator. "We knew all this stuff and had a high degree of confidence that it was going to be fine," Mark Salter, the senator's closest aide, said in an interview Tuesday.
A Republican strategist with close ties to the McCain camp, however, said Palin was a last-minute choice after McCain had given up on his preferred pick, Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, who addressed the convention Tuesday night. "He did so with such speed that they weren't able to do the full vet," said the GOP source, who did not want to be identified discussing the campaign's internal machinations.
Salter denied that account and its implication that the examination of Palin was hurried or superficial. No one beyond a few aides, McCain and his wife, Cindy, know exactly what transpired, Salter said.
Palin was one of just a few governors who McCain, shopping for a running mate, met for a private 90-minute session at the February meeting of the National Governors Assn. Later that evening, the two followed up at a private reception, where McCain pressed Palin for her views on energy issues. Aides said McCain was "extremely impressed."
When he assembled a list of 20 prospective running mates, Palin was among them. In early spring, campaign researchers began compiling 40-page dossiers on a number of contenders, including the Alaska governor. Salter, who was among those reviewing the materials, would not say how many dossiers were prepared. Palin was also asked to fill out a "very intrusive" questionnaire with 70 questions, Salter said, and underwent a three-hour interview with Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., a veteran Washington attorney in charge of McCain's vetting process. Asked why many of Palin's Alaskan colleagues were not contacted, Salter said Culvahouse and his team of lawyers "are very good and very discreet."
McCain was especially sensitive about maintaining the privacy of his prospects after he was passed over in 1996 by the GOP nominee, Bob Dole. McCain had waited around his hotel room in Hawaii on the eve of Dole's selection thinking he might get the call, but learned on television that Jack Kemp had been chosen.
