How McCain picked Palin

A long piece in the upcoming Sunday New York Times Magazine, The Making (and Remaking) of McCain, looks inside the campaign and has quite a bit of new information on how Palin was chosen.

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, (chief campaign strategist Steve) Schmidt picked up the phone around noon and called Jon Berrier, an old friend and partner at Schmidt's consulting business in Northern California. Berrier was asked to get on a plane to Anchorage, check into a hotel, await further details and tell no one. The next morning, Davis White, who oversaw all of McCain's travel logistics, met Berrier for breakfast in Anchorage. If McCain offered the vice president slot to Palin, White told Berrier, then Berrier would surreptitiously fly Palin's husband, Todd, and their children to Ohio on Thursday evening, and a public announcement would be made there the next morning.

Palin and her assistant, Kris Perry, met Schmidt and Salter on Wednesday evening in Flagstaff, at the house of Bob Delgado, the chief executive of Hensley Company, Cindy McCain's beer distributorship. A senior adviser said: "Salter was always a big Pawlenty fan son of a truck driver, salt of the earth, genuine guy. Just thought he was a good, honest addition to the McCain brand as opposed to, say, Romney." That so much momentum had been building in Palin's favor was likely a surprise to Salter, says one of the few individuals privy to the vice presidential selection process.

For two hours, Salter and Schmidt asked Palin questions based on the vetting material. Salter says they discussed her daughter's pregnancy and the pending state investigation regarding her role in the controversy surrounding the state trooper who had been married to her sister. The two advisers warned her that nothing was likely to stay secret during the campaign. Salter says that he was impressed. "The sense you immediately get is how tough minded and self assured she is," he recalled three weeks after meeting her. "She makes that impression in like 30 seconds."

The story comes on the heels of a New Yorker piece, The Insiders: How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin that describes how the governor came to the attention of conservative opinion makers, including the role of two cruise ships that stopped in Juneau in the summer of 2007.How McCain picked Palin

A long piece in the upcoming Sunday New York Times Magazine, The Making (and Remaking) of McCain, looks inside the campaign and has quite a bit of new information on how Palin was chosen.

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, (chief campaign strategist Steve) Schmidt picked up the phone around noon and called Jon Berrier, an old friend and partner at Schmidt's consulting business in Northern California. Berrier was asked to get on a plane to Anchorage, check into a hotel, await further details and tell no one. The next morning, Davis White, who oversaw all of McCain's travel logistics, met Berrier for breakfast in Anchorage. If McCain offered the vice president slot to Palin, White told Berrier, then Berrier would surreptitiously fly Palin's husband, Todd, and their children to Ohio on Thursday evening, and a public announcement would be made there the next morning.

Palin and her assistant, Kris Perry, met Schmidt and Salter on Wednesday evening in Flagstaff, at the house of Bob Delgado, the chief executive of Hensley Company, Cindy McCain's beer distributorship. A senior adviser said: "Salter was always a big Pawlenty fan son of a truck driver, salt of the earth, genuine guy. Just thought he was a good, honest addition to the McCain brand as opposed to, say, Romney." That so much momentum had been building in Palin's favor was likely a surprise to Salter, says one of the few individuals privy to the vice presidential selection process.

For two hours, Salter and Schmidt asked Palin questions based on the vetting material. Salter says they discussed her daughter's pregnancy and the pending state investigation regarding her role in the controversy surrounding the state trooper who had been married to her sister. The two advisers warned her that nothing was likely to stay secret during the campaign. Salter says that he was impressed. "The sense you immediately get is how tough minded and self assured she is," he recalled three weeks after meeting her. "She makes that impression in like 30 seconds."

The story comes on the heels of a New Yorker piece, The Insiders: How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin that describes how the governor came to the attention of conservative opinion makers, including the role of two cruise ships that stopped in Juneau in the summer of 2007.How McCain picked Palin

A long piece in the upcoming Sunday New York Times Magazine, The Making (and Remaking) of McCain, looks inside the campaign and has quite a bit of new information on how Palin was chosen.

On Tuesday, Aug. 26, (chief campaign strategist Steve) Schmidt picked up the phone around noon and called Jon Berrier, an old friend and partner at Schmidt's consulting business in Northern California. Berrier was asked to get on a plane to Anchorage, check into a hotel, await further details and tell no one. The next morning, Davis White, who oversaw all of McCain's travel logistics, met Berrier for breakfast in Anchorage. If McCain offered the vice president slot to Palin, White told Berrier, then Berrier would surreptitiously fly Palin's husband, Todd, and their children to Ohio on Thursday evening, and a public announcement would be made there the next morning.

Palin and her assistant, Kris Perry, met Schmidt and Salter on Wednesday evening in Flagstaff, at the house of Bob Delgado, the chief executive of Hensley Company, Cindy McCain's beer distributorship. A senior adviser said: "Salter was always a big Pawlenty fan son of a truck driver, salt of the earth, genuine guy. Just thought he was a good, honest addition to the McCain brand as opposed to, say, Romney." That so much momentum had been building in Palin's favor was likely a surprise to Salter, says one of the few individuals privy to the vice presidential selection process.

For two hours, Salter and Schmidt asked Palin questions based on the vetting material. Salter says they discussed her daughter's pregnancy and the pending state investigation regarding her role in the controversy surrounding the state trooper who had been married to her sister. The two advisers warned her that nothing was likely to stay secret during the campaign. Salter says that he was impressed. "The sense you immediately get is how tough minded and self assured she is," he recalled three weeks after meeting her. "She makes that impression in like 30 seconds."

The story comes on the heels of a New Yorker piece, The Insiders: How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin that describes how the governor came to the attention of conservative opinion makers, including the role of two cruise ships that stopped in Juneau in the summer of 2007.