With Barack Obama's vetting process for his VP, his choice became apparent as word leaked time and time again. But for John McCain, the process was more discreet.
What does vetting entail for a vice presidential candidate such as Sarah Palin?
The man who was in charge of the vetting process for the McCain campaign was a lawyer by the name of Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr.
After being impressed with Sarah Palin after a one-on-one talk with her back in February at the National Governors Association meeting as reported by
The Washington Post, John McCain had her name was added to a list of many, including the high profile candidates such as Mitt Romney, Tom Ridge, Tim Pawlenty and Joseph Lieberman.
The process stayed discreet until after John McCain had officially announced her as his running mate last Friday and since then speculation about the "vetting" process has been running wild.
The
Washington Times details the process used by Culvahouse on behalf of John McCain and his campaign.
With the news that the McCain campaign has sent operatives and lawyers to Alaska a day before McCain announced her as his running mate, came more speculation asking if the McCain campaign was only now getting around to vetting Sarah Palin, with a senior adviser for the McCain campaign Steve Schmidt saying that a "jump team" was always scheduled to go to the eventual running mate's home town after the choice had been officially made "to work with the nominee's staff, help with information requests from local and national reporters, and answer questions about documents that were part of the review."
It all started with a list of potential candidates under consideration, which included Palin's name. From there approximately 25 people were tasked with the responsibility to pour through public records, public speeches and her stands on policy issues to identify any trouble spots she may have.
Culvahouse tells the Associated Press that as with the other possible VP choices, Palin's public speeches,financial records, tax information, litigation, investigations, ethical charges, as well as marriages and divorces were all scoured through.
For Palin specifically, the team studied online archives of the state's largest newspapers, including the Anchorage Daily News, but didn't request paper archives for Palin's hometown newspaper for fear the secret review would become public.
That public search produced information about the investigation in the dismissal of Alaska's public safety commissioner, who alleges he was dismissed for not firing Palin's brother-in-law, which has been come to be known as "troopergate" across the web.
A 40-page report, per candidate, was then put together and given to John McCain, Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis, and top advisers Mark Salter and Charlie Black. to go through.
The follow up, according Culvahouse, included sending Palin a 70 page "intrusive" questionnaire asking for personal data and she was asked to submit federal and state tax returns for a number of previous years.
Throughout the vetting process, Rick Davis, had multiple conversations with Palin and then it was time for Culvahouse to speak in-depth to Palin, which it is believed by some to have been done via a tip to Alaska, which ended up being tipped to a blogger who writes for
Wizbang, who reported that Culvahouse was spotted in Juneau, Alaska, back in May.
Culvahouse conducted a three-hour interview with Palin, where she informed him of her daughters pregnancy, which he says was the first thing she volunteered, and she made mention of her husband Todd's DUI arrest in 1986.
Culvahouse also asked Palin follow up questions on the "troopergate" issue and then spent hours with her lawyer going over the details.
Among the findings from the public search of records on Palin, the McCain campaign did find one more detail about Palin that has not been disclosed and spoken about endlessly in the media, blogs, forums and other outlets across the web, but it may be a deal breaker for some.
Palin had once received a citation for fishing without a license.
