Below The Beltway

I noted yesterday, here and here, the clear and apparent risks that the McCain campaign has taken in picking an unknown, inexperienced, political newcomer to be his Vice-Presidential running mate.

Today, ABC is out with a report that makes one wonder just how vetted Sarah Palin actually is:

It wasn’t until Sunday night that John McCain, after meeting with his four top advisers, finally decided he could not tap independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to be his running mate. One adviser, tasked with taking the temperature of the conservative base, had strongly made the case to McCain that it would be a disaster for the party and that the base would revolt. McCain concluded he could not go that route.

The next day, McCain studied the three men at the top of his shortlist: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. All had different strengths and negatives, but McCain was not satisfied. None of them had what McCain believed he needed to do — and would have done — with Lieberman.

McCain wanted to shake up the ticket.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s name was in the mix as an unconventional choice for months, but she had not been considered a front-runner. So, over the next few days, with McCain continuing to believe he needed someone who had more of a maverick streak than his other choices, lawyers reviewed her vetting information. They kept their activities from even some in McCain’s most senior inner circle.

Pawlenty had been the youthful pick advisers believed would represent a fresh direction — and one they could use to argue the Republican VP pick was more experienced than the Democratic presidential nominee. But Pawlenty’s flaw — what cost him the VP — was that he would not have stirred things up. He was safe, and McCain was not inclined to take the safe route.

In other words, it was a last minute knee-jerk decision on McCain’s part based on the idea of “shaking the campaign up.” If that’s truly the case, then one has to wonder just how thoroughly Palin, whom had only met McCain in person one time before flying to Flagstaff this week, has been vetted.

And, as Jonathan Alter points out in Newsweek, if she hasn’t been vetted yet the media stands ready to do the job, quickly:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s debut in Dayton on Friday was good political theater. She delivered a pitch-perfect speech (presumably written by McCain’s ghost writer, Mark Salter) with a panache that suggests she could be a natural on the national stage. The well-kept secret of her selection let the GOP step on the story of Obama’s boffo acceptance speech in Denver. It’s not hard to see why she appealed to McCain: her middle-class roots; her older son headed for Iraq with the U.S. Army; her opposition to the earmarked “bridge to nowhere,” which is arguably the only domestic issue that gets McCain excited. If camera-ready Palin helps McCain close the gender gap and win in November, she’ll be history’s hockey mom.

But there’s a reason that rookies rarely score hat tricks. It’s not her lack of name recognition; America loves a fresh face, especially one that’s a cross between a Fox anchor and a character on “Northern Exposure,” the old TV show about an Alaska town about the size of Wasilla. The problem is that politics, like all professions, isn’t as easy as it looks. Palin’s odds of emerging unscathed this fall are slim. In fact, she’s been all but set up for failure.

“What is it exactly that the vice president does all day?” Palin offhandedly asked CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow in July. Kudlow explained that the job has become more important in recent years. Palin knows the energy crisis well, even if her claim on “Charlie Rose” that Alaska’s untapped resources can significantly ease it is unsupported by the facts. But what does she know about Iranian nukes, health care or the future of entitlement programs? And that’s just a few of the 20 or so national issues on which she will be expected to show basic competence. The McCain camp will have to either let her wing it based on a few briefing memos (highly risky) or prevent her from taking questions from reporters (a confession that she’s unprepared). Either way, she’s going to belly-flop at a time when McCain can least afford it.

In some respects has already started. The Washington Post and MSNBC are already starting to look into the ongoing ethics investigation, some people in her native Alaska are wondering what the logic behind the pick actually is, and the issue of her relative inexperience has already become an issue:

DENVER – John McCain’s risky choice of Gov. Sarah Palin gives him a running mate who doubles down on his maverick image, may appeal to “hockey moms” and other women, and counters Barack Obama’s aura of new-generation change. But he may have undercut his best attack on the Democrat.

If Obama is an empty suit, as McCain has suggested, is Palin suited for the Oval Office herself?

She is younger and less experienced than the first-term Illinois senator, and brings an ethical shadow to the ticket. A governor for just 20 months, she was two-term mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of 6,500 where the biggest issue is controlling growth and the biggest civic worry is whether there will be enough snow for the Iditarod dog-mushing race.

(…)

Palin’s lack of experience undercuts GOP charges that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief. McCain said in April that he was determined to avoid a pick like Dan Quayle, the little-known Indiana senator whom George H.W. Bush put on his ticket in 1988. The choice proved embarrassing.

Quayle “had not been briefed and prepared for some of the questions,” McCain said while discussing his vice presidential search. He was clearly aware that, as a septuagenarian, the decision he made about a running mate would be “of enhanced importance.”

And there’s at least some indication that he blew it.

Is it possible that things will work themselves out ? Yes, but the klieg lights of the national media are far more intense than the Northern Lights of Anchorage, and it’s unclear that Palin will be able to survive.

If she doesn’t, John McCain will pay the price in November.

Update: James Joyner adds these thoughts about Palin, her experience, and the task ahead of her:

The four people on the two national tickets include two, McCain and Joe Biden, who are manifestly prepared to be president using the résumé-at-a-glance test. They’ve both spent decades at the highest levels of government service, including the making of American foreign and national security policy.

A third, Obama, has convinced the Democratic nominating electorate and roughly half the country, judging by the current polls, that he has unique gifts that make him ready despite a dearth of traditional experience. Even those of us ideologically predisposed against him acknowlege that he’s unusually bright and a quick study. And the mere fact that he’s been running for president for the last two years has sped his preparation along.

And then there’s Sarah Palin. Some smart people whose opinions I respect, including Bill Dyer and my colleagues John Burgess and Dave Schuler, are favorably impressed by her. But most of the country had never heard of her before yesterday. She doesn’t pass the résumé test. So, she’ll have to persuade the public that she’s ready on the campaign trail, the interview shows, and a debate against Joe Biden.

And that test is going to come quickly. The Republican Convention starts on Monday. At some point, Plain will be making the rounds of the cable networks and the Sunday morning talk shows (in that regard, perhaps she should be glad that she won’t have to worry about facing down the questioning of Tim Russert) And then, in 33 days she will meet Joe Biden in their one and only debate. After that, the public’s opinion of her will be, for the most part, set in stone.