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McCain Picks Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as VP Choice; Will McCain's VP Choice Affect Obama's Bounce?
Aired August 29, 2008 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, this is a legislative investigation at this point.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: A legislative investigation, yes, that started earlier, really earlier this year, which is surprising, July 10th. But again, these are just allegations at this point, and they're still under investigation.
HARRIS: And you're investigating this as well.
LEMON: And we're going -- as we said, just as we speak. But again, that's the information coming to us from Alaska and from our sources.
HARRIS: And the reason this is important is because we are all trying to get to know more about Sarah Palin. This is part of the record out of her home state of Alaska.
LEMON: As we're finding more and more, out more and more about a very interesting woman -- we've been talking about her life, her children, what she's accomplished. And also, I want to say this. This is a quote. She made an impact, in part, made her name on backing tough ethical standards for politicians.
So, if this indeed turns out to be true, then that is a problem.
HARRIS: Don, appreciate it.
Let's get you back to John Roberts in Denver.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Tony and Don, thanks very much.
Not only are we learning more about Sarah Palin, but we're also learning more about what other people think of her.
Let's bring in Suzanne Malveaux. She's on the phone now. She's close to the Obama campaign as it gets set to take off for Pennsylvania, an event later on this evening.
Suzanne, what's being said inside the Obama campaign in reaction to this announcement?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, they're actually quite pleased with this. I spoke with Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, and they're preparing an official statement. But he essentially said that the experience, the issue of experience, is off the table.
He says, considering, and in his words, "Considering you're putting someone within a heartbeat of the presidency with the thinnest foreign policy experience in history," he says it's also interesting that John McCain would pick someone who currently is under investigation in her own state. And he went on to say that on his birthday, meaning McCain's birthday, he surprised folks by making a pick that takes the experience argument off the table.
So that from Bill Burton this morning, just kind of the initial reaction from the Obama campaign. But clearly, you know, they believe that for all of the arguments that were made against Barack Obama about his own foreign policy experience, that they look at this VP candidate and believe that that is no longer an issue.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, initially making it an issue. We'll see how much of an issue they make of it in the next few days.
Suzanne Malveaux on the telephone with us with the Obama campaign. She'll be traveling with them to Pennsylvania very shortly.
Meantime, let's go to Dayton, Ohio. Our Dana Bash at the event where Senator John McCain will introduce Governor Sarah Palin to Republicans and to the nation on a national stage.
And what's it looking like from there, Dana?
DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the warm-up has just started. We expect to actually see them not too long from now.
But I want to actually dovetail off of some of the things that Suzanne was just saying, criticisms from Obama campaign, because, you know -- especially the big one, which is, what about the experience thing? Because when we were reporting on this morning, that was obviously the big question mark in all of our minds. Can he really pick Sarah Palin, somebody who was just elected for the first time to an executive office, a statewide executive office, just two years ago, and somebody who is only 44 years old, given the argument that he's making?
However, Suzanne also alluded to this, and it's actually important for our viewers to know, today is actually John McCain's 72nd birthday, 72nd birthday. And it's a reminder that if elected, he would be the oldest president, oldest president ever elected.
Sarah Palin is 44 years old. That's a 28-year difference. I mean, clearly, clearly, at the end of the day, part of the calculation inside the McCain campaign and part of the calculation for John McCain was the need to change and the need to show that he is going to change. And that is exactly why you're going to see this kind of thing. And also, I mean, you can't underestimate in talking to McCain staffers since the end of the Democratic primary how eager they are and how much they're trying to figure out how to get those disaffected women, many of whom we saw on the floor of the convention all week long in Denver. How do you take some of them and convince them that John McCain isn't so bad?
Well, one of the ways to do it is to pick somebody who is a young mother, somebody with teenaged children, but somebody also who can appeal to the Christian conservatives, and to social conservatives. Remember, that's another big, big thing that was under discussion for so long outside the McCain campaign and inside the McCain campaign, because John McCain simply isn't somebody who is trusted, let's face it, still isn't somebody who's trusted by the social conservatives, the base whom he does feel a need at least have some kind of motivation to get out and vote for him, they needed to find somebody who was OK by him.
And by every indication -- I'm getting e-mails from activists, conservative activists. They don't see anything on her record in terms of her position on social issues, whether it's abortion or other issues like that, that really could make her kind of a non-starter and force Evangelicals to stay home.
Having said that, the experience issue, that is a big one, and we're going to be traveling with Senator McCain to his next event, and I hope perhaps we'll get a chance to ask him some questions. And no question that will be on the top of the list. How do you make an argument that you need to have experience as commander in chief and pick somebody who's only been in the governor's mansion for two years?
John.
ROBERTS: So, Dana, what does this suggest about the role that the vice president in a McCain administration would take? I remember John McCain, when asked years ago if he wanted to be vice president, he said, well, the job of the vice president is to go to funerals and inquire daily as to the health of the president. So if you're choosing someone who has very little political experience as your vice presidential running mate, particularly after eight years of an administration where you had one of the strongest vice presidents in this nation's history, what does that say about the potential role for Sarah Palin?
BASH: Well, I think that's probably a little bit hard to answer in that we don't know that much -- those of us on a national stage -- we don't know that much about her in terms of her capabilities, if you will. I think maybe the best way to answer that question is, you know, is he going to have somebody like Dick Cheney? No way.
And you know what? Maybe that's part of the point here, you know. The last time around a Republican picked somebody who had experience and who would have a very, very significant role inside the White House, and, you know, somebody who has possibly the lowest approval ratings in the country right now. So I would imagine that was probably low on the list in terms of reasons to pick her, but it might not be a bad thing in terms of the calculus inside the McCain campaign to think, you know what? Having somebody who isn't as activist and might be somewhat threatening to some might not be that bad -- John.
ROBERTS: You know, there's one other issue. We've talked about her experience and what depth of experience she has, the fact that maybe she tries to peel off a few women voters on the Democratic side who really wanted to see a woman in the White House in some way, shape, or form.
There's also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down Syndrome. The baby is just slightly more than 4 months old now. Children with Down Syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of vice president, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of, how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?
BASH: That's a very good question, and I guess my guess is that perhaps the line inside the McCain campaign would be, if it were a man being picked who also had a baby 4 months ago with Down Syndrome, would you ask the same question? And that might be another way to kind of, you know, close the gender gap in trying to make the point that, yes, she not only has unfortunately a baby with Down Syndrome, but she has five children, the oldest of whom is apparently in the Army and is apparently going to head off to Iraq in the fall.
So, you know, it absolutely is going to be a question that she is going to have to answer. And there's no question that she had to do soul searching and figure out if she could take this on when John McCain made clear that he wanted her to be his running mate. And it's going to be one of the interesting things that we are going to be able to hear from her when she finally does speak, whether she'll address these things here or in subsequent interviews.
That's going to be a fascinating thing, but it also does appeal to social conservatives in another way. And that is that, you know, part of her story, if you read her discussions about that baby, is that, you know, she knew before she gave birth to that baby that it had Down Syndrome and she chose to keep the baby. And that is -- and it's because she is somebody who is anti-abortion.
She is somebody who is very staunchly anti-abortion. That kind of story also can help appeal to the social conservatives that John McCain is still trying to win over in his own party.
ROBERTS: Dana, what's your sense of how this is going to affect the dynamic of the Republican National Convention, when it opens on Monday in St. Paul, Minnesota?
BASH: You know, it's funny. I think it could change it a lot in that the people who we knew were talking were kind of those who have been on the stage, the national stage, for some time -- the president of the United States, his wife, and the vice president -- but also on the stage in terms of the primaries for some time. People like Rudy Giuliani, people like Mitt Romney and so forth, people who we have gotten to know because of the primary season.
This is a fresh face, and that is really the point here. This is somebody new, this is somebody different, and this is change, change, change. This is John McCain's way to say, I'm 72 years old, but I can be an agent of change, too.
ROBERTS: Such a fresh face that many long-term Republicans like Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison don't know much about her. So we're looking into her background, trying to bring you all of the information about who the vice presidential running mate is, and we'll have more on that after this quick break.
Stay with us here on CNN.
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ROBERTS: We're back here on CNN, and we are watching very closely as John McCain about to announce his vice presidential running mate in a live event in Dayton, Ohio.
Our John King is with us.
And John, you have been working the BlackBerry furiously over the last few hours. What are you hearing from Republicans about this choice?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's very interesting, John. Support from conservatives, especially social conservatives, are flowing in.
Let me start -- a few minutes ago, Don Lemon reported on this investigation under way in the state of Alaska as to whether someone in the governor's office abused their power to complicate a case in the hiring and firing of a state trooper. I asked a McCain person whether that had come up in the vetting, and I got an e-mail back saying that, "We resolved those issues to our satisfaction." I asked in another e-mail how, and I was told -- I got the same answer back -- "We resolved, and to our satisfaction this won't come up down the road."
Inside the McCain campaign they know we were going to raise questions about, is she ready to be commander in chief, a 44-year-old first-term governor, only in office two years? They of course they know that's a question. You just asked a very poignant question. She's the mother of a infant child with Down Syndrome. Can she -- up to the rigors not only of a national campaign, but of the vice presidency should they win the election?
ROBERTS: And I wasn't asking that from a political standpoint either. As the father of two children, you wonder, a child requires a lot of attention when a child is healthy. The child has Down Syndrome, requires that much more care.
Can she take the time that she needs with her child? How would it affect that child's development? KING: And it's interesting. This e-mail does not address that specifically, but the e-mail said, "We are confident (INAUDIBLE) all of these questions powerfully and persuasively." And a bit later in the e-mail, the McCain aide said, "And because of that confidence, the senator was happy to make this pick. And look at what's happening this morning. We are the story."
We are sitting outside the stadium where Barack Obama made history last night, the first African-American to accept a major party nomination. And the conversation, at least in the last couple of hours, has all been about what some would say is -- I think all would say is a very bold pick by John McCain.
The Democrats, of course, are saying it is a risky pick. Republicans are saying that they are rallying around her, social conservatives especially.
Remember at the beginning of the Democratic convention there was some question about unity -- the Clinton camp, the Obama camp. You can be certain now based on everything coming in, I think there will be a lot of people wanting to get to know this governor better. But all indications are that the most vocal voice at any Republican convention are social conservatives, and everything coming in from various factions of that movement to me over the e-mail and a couple of phone calls is that they are extremely happy with this pick.
ROBERTS: All right. So let's look at it now from a purely political calculus.
As you said, you had Barack Obama come out of INVESCO Field last night after what Republican and Democrat agree was an extraordinary political moment, 80,000 people in here as he gave what probably was the speech of his life. You would expect that coming out of that, with all the attention paid to it, he would get a fairly substantial bounce. I mean, that could be a bit of an assumption on my part, but you would think after that people would be paying attention.
The fact that John McCain is now coming in with this pick that was really completely out-of-the-box thinking for him, will that potentially affect any kind of a bounce that Barack Obama gets? Or do you have at this point in this race Democrats who are not going to look at the Republican side and Republicans who are not going to look at the Democrat side?
KING: The dynamic, we've learned that in eight years of George W. Bush, in eight years of Bill Clinton. We've become pretty polarized, the politics of the country.
Barack Obama had about a six-point lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll before he gave that speech last night. That was a bit of a bounce, about four to six points from the early stages of the convention.
The McCain campaign calculation was that that would be up to 10, maybe 12 points by this afternoon, because they expected him to give a good speech, and he gave such a good speech, the McCain camp thinks maybe it will go higher. Obviously, their convention is just around the corner.
Their goal is to negate that bounce, bring it back down to essentially a national dead heat by the end of their convention. This pick will obviously get some attention.
Electorally, they think it will help a great deal right where we are, right in the West. Again, she is a lifetime NRA member, she owns a gun, she's a sportsman, she fishes.
She's very involved in the energy issue, which is the dominant subset of the economic issue right now. Now, Democrats will say that's controversial. Is it just drilling? Is it just more drilling from Alaska?
But the McCain camp thinks she's young, dynamic, a fresh face people want to look at, and that both with their base, social conservatives, and geographically, with the competitive nature of the West, they think she helps. But this is a big question mark in presidential politics today.
ROBERTS: So let's take a look at the dynamic then of the individual campaigns.
You have Barack Obama, who is the soaring oratory, not necessarily in his DNA to really get out there and attack, buttressed by Joe Biden, who can go toe to toe with the best of them. Then on the other side, you've got John McCain and you've got Sarah Palin.
Is she going to be an attack dog?
KING: She's known more as a very friendly, small-town -- obviously a very different -- no big cities. That's a great question.
ROBERTS: So what the dynamic going to be there?
KING: We'll see -- what the McCain camp says the dynamic is this, Joe Biden, 36 years in Washington, Barack Obama doesn't know the ways of Washington. That will be their case, an inexperienced guy who wants to be president and a guy who spends too much time in Washington. You know, of course, the Democrats say, wait a minute, Joe Biden takes the train home every night.
What John McCain is going to say now is, I have been fighting my party, I've been pushing campaign finance reform, I've been pushing lobbying reform since before Barack Obama was even in the Illinois State Senate. Now I have a reformer from the other end of the country who is a reformer in her state.
And they will make the case -- and again, the Democrats will dispute this fiercely, but the Republicans will make the case, we actually have a reform ticket that is willing to go outside the rules of the Republican Party, outside the way politics are normally practiced. And if you want not only a change in Washington, but a changed way of politics -- that's the way they're going to sell this. We'll see how it plays out as we go forward. ROBERTS: Let's bring in Dana Bash, who's live at the event in Dayton, Ohio, where we expected about 20 minutes ago to see Senator McCain and his vice presidential pick.
Dana, one day in October, Sarah Palin is going to sit down across the table with Joe Biden for the vice presidential debate. You have 36 years in the Senate here with extraordinary foreign policy experience on one side. You have two years as a state governor, coupled with some time as a local mayor in Alaska.
How is she going to be able to hold her own against Joe Biden when it comes to those deep policy issues that always dominate these presidential and vice presidential debates?
BASH: That is one of the most fascinating questions, John. And it's one that made me and others keep scratching our head saying, really? Are you sure? Because not only is Joe Biden somebody who is steeped in experience on the national stage and international stage, he's a master debater.
I mean, I cover the Senate and I watch him. And, you know, there are a lot of people who are pretty good on that Senate floor, and pretty few come close to Joe Biden. So that is going to be a big question mark.
You know, inside the McCain campaign, my sense is that they see that as a big night, but one night. And the most important thing for them is to get her, and get her out in the field, get her out in the battleground states, as John says, get her out in the Mountain West, especially, to be really playing up the things that are John McCain's deficits.
And we've been talking about a lot of them now. And I just want to tell you about an e-mail I just got from a Republican pollster who happened to have separate from this in polling about issues relating to Sarah Palin. And what he said is that, you know, people see her very much, especially inside her state, as somebody who's tough on corruption, somebody who fights earmarks, independent-minded, yet a social conservative.
Does that sound familiar? That is precisely the reason why John McCain, we understand, picked her.
The other thing that this pollster said is that he recently did a survey of governors around the country and found that she was the most popular governor of all the governors in the country. I think her numbers were about 80 percent.
So those are interesting numbers that should give us a clue into her likability in the state that could perhaps, you know, transcend onto the national stage. Clearly, that's what the McCain campaign is banking on -- John.
ROBERTS: Now, one advantage a governor has in the political process, particularly in the choice for either vice presidential running mate or for nominee for president, is they have management experience. They have run something.
Joe Biden is a senator. He's got vast foreign policy experience, but she is a manager. I assume that they're going to play that off of his foreign policy experience. But, at the same time, Dana, will she have to get a crash course on some of the big issues that Senator Biden has mastered so well?
BASH: Oh, sure. I mean, there's no question about it.
You know, clearly, what you have to deal with on your plate when you're sitting in the governor's mansion is not how you deal with Iran. It's not how you deal with Israel. It's not how you deal with Russia.
But, you know, the reality is that, you know, I think that they could make the point, and I assume that they will make the point, that even as a United States senator, sure, you deal with those issues, but somebody like Barack Obama has been in the Senate but he hasn't been in the Senate that long. In fact, he's been in the Senate just a little bit longer than Governor Palin has been in the governor's mansion in Alaska.
So I think that they're looking at the parallels and looking at some of the pitfalls that they know are there for Barack Obama and saying, well, some of those aren't necessarily sticking. Well, you know, but we can at least take a chance with somebody we know has other positive qualities like fighting corruption, like -- and like trying to reform the government not just on a statewide level, but if you look at her bio, she was a small town mayor, and that is kind of how she made her name in running and saying, you know, I'm not going to deal with these problems. I'm going to try to shake some things up there.
One other note. I just have to tell you just because it's been on my mind and because I've been covering -- following John McCain around the country so much, two things that are a little bit interesting.
First of all, one of his favorite lines is how he basically trashes Alaska all the time, but specifically the idea in Alaska that one of the biggest earmarks was for the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, it's one of his favorite lines. So it's going to be interesting to see how he squares that with the fact that that was a pretty popular thing in the state of Alaska, now he's picking the governor of Alaska.
The other thing is on one of the issues, the key issues here, drilling for oil, energy and gas prices. John McCain has come around in a very active way to the idea of offshore drilling, but he still says he is against drilling for oil in Alaska.
He says that is still a pristine area. That's something that many people in Alaska do support, most people in Alaska do support. So those are some kind of differences that are small differences but represent differences that are on a big issue, especially in this election. ROBERTS: Well, certainly there are a couple of differences there. I assume that he's going to explain the Bridge to Nowhere contradiction by saying that she has never asked for a congressional earmark in her life. But we don't know.
We're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back with more coverage here of the pending vice presidential announcement with Senator John McCain.
We are live in Denver and in Dayton, Ohio, for you today here on CNN.
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ROBERTS: Live pictures this morning from Dayton, Ohio, where -- well, actually, no. Here we are. We're in Denver. And we are anxiously awaiting the announcement in Dayton, Ohio.
And there we go, there's a live picture in Dayton, Ohio, this morning. Senator John McCain about to announce his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, who is the governor of Alaska.
A lot of questions raised by this selection because she has only had a couple of years of statewide disappearance, she's only been the governor since 2006. She was a mayor before that, no time on the national stage.
And the official press release is out now. The McCain camp making it official that she will be the running mate.
Our John King is here now.
And they're answering some of those questions in this release.
KING: Certainly trying to.
And also worth noting, history made here last night. Barack Obama the first African-American nominee. Sarah Palin will be only the second woman to be on a national ticket. Geraldine Ferraro, of course, with Walter Mondale. So the Republicans making a bit of history for their party.
Two of the questions. We talked about the Bridge to Nowhere. Dana Bash said Senator McCain trashes it -- that's the right word -- in just about every speech.
In the announcement, they say in Alaska, Governor Palin challenged the corrupt system, and she put a stop to the Bridge to Nowhere that would have cost taxpayers $400 million. So John McCain saying, she's like me, doesn't like wasteful spending.
Here is the key graph here in trying to answer, wait a minute, is she ready to be commander in chief? They say yes, by saying, "As the head of Alaska's National Guard and as the mother of a soldier herself, Governor Palin understands what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops." So, in this official release making it official, she is the choice. They're beginning to try to answer some of those questions. You can be certain -- and our BlackBerrys are all lighting up with pushes from the Democrats to say, ask this, ask this -- but they're trying to push her as a reformer, a maverick. They used the word here.
So, somebody who is not beholden to a political reporter. That is how John McCain sees himself. Essentially trying to say, here are two people who will fight to change the way government doesn't work, is probably the right way to put it, at the moment, in their view.
But again, John, it is a bold pick and it is an interesting pick. So many Democrats saying, you're the guy, John McCain, who says leadership and experience is the criteria. You're trashing Barack Obama for not having it, in your view. How can you do this?
So this is a big change and an interesting question in the campaign dynamic.
ROBERTS: Let's bring in CNN White House Correspondent Ed Henry, who's covering the McCain campaign as well.
And Ed, we talked about the dynamic here between the nominee and the running mate, the dynamic between the two vice presidential candidates. Here we have on one vast foreign policy experience, 36 years in the Senate. On the other side of the coin, we have got management experience.
Which one of those wins out?
ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we'll see. I mean, it's going to be very interesting in a head-to-head confrontation.
You're right, in the one vice president debate, you're now going to have Joe Biden on the Democratic side with a vast amount of foreign policy experience, clearly knows his way around the world, and Sarah Palin, who really has no foreign policy experience. And as John King was just saying, that's the central argument that John McCain has been making about Barack Obama, that he's just not ready to be president. And now he's saying on his 72nd birthday that someone who's 44 and has no foreign policy experience is ready to step into the role. That's going to be a challenge obviously to make that case.
Secondly, as John was saying, they're trying to underline the maverick image, that she's a reformer in Alaska, that John McCain has been a reform in Washington, and that they're going to shake things up. But obviously you're going to also hear Democrats pushing back immediately, as they are, in saying that if John McCain really was a maverick, he would have gone with someone like Joe Lieberman, that they had floated that trial balloon of Joe Lieberman, an Independent Democrat, maybe Tom Ridge, a moderate Republican.
But as we all know, Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives warned that that would lead to the destruction of the Republican Party, it would split the party at the Republican convention next week. And in the end, John McCain went with a conservative.
So you're going to hear the Democrats try to say, well, this is not really being a maverick, that he, in their words, buckled to the right wing of his party. So you're going to hear that battle back and forth -- John.
ROBERTS: All right. Ed Henry for us following the developments there.
Let's bring in Wolf Blitzer. He's just landed in Minnesota -- in Minneapolis.
Wolf, you were here all week covering the Democratic National Convention, the Republican National Convention starts on Monday. How do you think this is going to change the dynamic there in St. Paul?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you know, John at the early part of the week there was real concern among some of the Democratic -- some of the Obama supporters, some of the Obama strategists, I've been speaking to them, that when it became clear that Joe Biden was the vice presidential running mate for Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, that sort of a good tactical move of to try to attract some of those disgruntled, angry Hillary Clinton supporters would be for John McCain to select a woman as his running mate, have a woman only a heart beat away from the presidency. And that might be very attractive, be very appealing to some of those angry Hillary Clinton supporters.
And there was some speculation, someone you spoke with earlier, Kay Bailey Hutchison, for example, a senior senator from Texas, she could have been a formidable candidate. We checked early in the week and she was not being even -- that went away. Frankly, I'm pretty surprised that they decided to go with the Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, but I suspect that one of the reasons they did was this might be an attractive way to get over some of those undecided Hillary Clinton supporters and maybe make it more of an appealing Republican ticket for them.
ROBERTS: Wolf, I'm sorry. When we talked about the Republicans potentially picking a woman as a running mate, the name Kay Bailey Hutchison from Texas, senator from Texas, came up from time to time.
BLITZER: Right.
ROBERTS: Every of once in a while the name of Sarah Palin would be floated, but as an extraordinarily dark horse candidate. Kay Bailey Hutchison admitted to us in an interview just last hour that she doesn't know much about her. So the fact that Sarah Palin is not very well known, do you think that is going to have any impact here among voters?
BLITZER: Well, it certainly removes this notion of the lack of experience that Barack Obama might have had as a community organizer, and a state senator, now a U.S. senator, and the notion that is -- he really qualified to be commander-in-chief? There will be questions raised about Sarah Palin. Is she really ready to be commander in chief, God forbid if something were happen to John McCain if he were elected president? And that whole issue will be discussed front and center.
And the other issues that will come forward, and I'm sure the McCain people did some serious vetting with her and went through her capabilities, a lot of people are going to wonder, is she ready to go into a head to head debate against an experienced debater like Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate? Is that going to be a fair fight, if you will? They'll argue that this is a woman who is very intelligent, good management experience, a governor of a state. On the other hand, she doesn't have a whole lot of experience in the area of foreign affairs.
ROBERTS: So, Wolf, you know, at the end of the day, people don't vote for the running mate, they vote for the candidate. So how much is this really going to matter in the overall scheme of things?
BLITZER: Well that's an excellent point, John, because at the end of the day, you're absolutely right, they don't vote for the vice presidential candidate, they vote for the presidential candidate. We certainly learned that in '88 contest with Michael Dukakis, when he was the Democratic presidential candidate and he picked Lloyd Bentsen to be his running mate, a very respected senior senator from Texas who had a lot of credibility, and George Herbert Walker Bush picked Dan Quayle, who was a little known, junior senator from Indiana. And it obviously did not do that well in that debate when Dan Quayle debated Lloyd Bentsen, the vice presidential debate. Everybody agreed that Lloyd Benson decisively won.
In the end, though, George Herbert Walker Bush was elected. Dukakis suffered a serious defeat. So as much as we're going to focus right now on Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, when all is said and done, Americans are going to vote either because they like Barack Obama or they like John McCain. That's the key factor right now. This is the -- it's an important decision that Barack Obama has made and John McCain has made because it speaks to where their heads are at and it's the most important decision a presidential candidate can make, to have someone only a heartbeat away from the presidency.
But in the end I think you're right, Americans are not going to vote for a vice president, they're going to vote for the president.
ROBERTS: All right, Wolf, I know that you're running very quickly to the location there in Minneapolis where you'll be anchoring "THE SITUATION ROOM" this afternoon beginning at 4:00 and our election coverage as well. We'll let you get to that.
Wolf, thanks very much. We'll talk to you a little bit later on.
Meantime, let's go down to Atlanta. Josh Levs has been monitoring i-Reports that have been incoming to CNN, some reaction from you out there, our i-Reporters, to this vice presidential pick.
Josh, what are you hearing?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's always good to hear the initial i-Reports because these are the first things that we're hearing from voters out there and what their reactions are. We always keep in mind, in the end, it all boils down to the voters of course.
We're just getting the first few right here. I'm going to do my best to show them to you on the board. Let's zoom in right here. Obviously our top story right now on CNN.com is all about Sarah Palin, people learning about her and here you can learn a little bit more about her. At ireport.com, breaking news here, the big announcement, McCain's pick for VP. We are inviting your photos, your videos, your stories, whatever your thoughts are.
Here, John, are some of the first initial reactions we're getting. Let's start off with this.
"I think it was a very smart move. This shows he's listening to the people of America and that he's interested in their opinions and preferences. I think it was a positive decision."
Someone else, though, says, "Does anyone, and I mean anyone, believe that McCain would have made this pick unless he was desperate to woo former Hillary supporters?" Timothy Lee (ph) continues to write, "This is a very transparent attempt to try to out-minority Obama."
But we're seeing a few more positives. Let's go over here, if we can get to this.
This one calls it -- well let's go to this one -- "A little bit of a disappointing decision." This person wanted more balance in the ticket. "I hoped there would be more balance in the next team coming to power. Palin choice just lost the Republicans five votes in my family."
But over here, this is the one we're going to now. This person calls it "brilliant." "I think John has made the ultimate move to bring another female into the picture. And by her stats, she qualifies quite well. He had my vote before and has it even more today."
Now obviously the big news there -- we're keeping an eye out for the big announcement. We're going to hear what they have to say. We invite your i-Reports, stories, videos, whatever you want say about this choice at ireport.com.
And John, we'll be here throughout the day sharing them with you.
ROBERTS: Josh Levs for us in Atlanta.
Josh, thanks very much for that.
Gloria Borger, CNN political analyst, is on the telephone with us now.
Gloria, as you know, we've been talking about this all week, CNN Opinion Research Corporation Poll out earlier this week found that 27 percent of Hillary Clinton voters said that they were going to vote for John McCain rather than Barack Obama. That was up 11 points from the end of June. With his pick of Sarah Palin as a running mate, has John McCain just locked up those voters?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: No, I don't think he has. I think there is clearly a sense that the choice of a woman would appeal to women, that this is a governor who could help in the Rocky Mountain west, that she could clearly lock up the conservative base. She's an avid NRA member and can help John McCain that way. She has a good personal story.
But I just got off the phone with a senior Republican who sort of said to me, you know, we're all kind of scratching our heads here. This is a quintessential John McCain decision, something we didn't expect. He always likes to surprise people. And I guess the question that everyone is asking, which is the one that Wolf Blitzer just asked a moment ago, which is, what does this do to the experience argument? The argument against Barack Obama was always, sure, you want change, but what's the risk?
John McCain himself, who is 72 years old today, has said that the one qualification for commander in chief for his vice president would somebody who could take over for him in a moment, that he's well aware that people are worried about his age issue. And I think a lot of people are kind of saying, well, is this the person who can do that?
ROBERTS: Well you know, the McCain campaign is trying to answer some of those questions this morning by saying, she's a governor of a state, she's a fiscal conservative, she knows how to manage money, she knows how to manage a state. In terms of whether or not she would have the experience to be commander in chief should, God forbid, something happen to the president, the McCain campaign points out that she's in charge of the National Guard as a state governor, her son is about to go to Iraq, a member of the military.
Does that fully answer those questions, Gloria?
BORGER: Well I think that's clearly what they believe. I think also, John, what this tells us is that John McCain is going to run as a reformer. She's known as a reformer. I believe she canceled that infamous bridge to nowhere that John McCain likes to talk about so much. And I think he's going to try and make this a real reform ticket, portraying her as somebody who's fiscally conservative, willing to make the tough decisions, who represents change, no doubt, and run as a reform ticket for the Republican Party.
You know, being a reformer is a pretty good thing in this country. People don't like the way the country has been run. And John McCain has real credibility on that issue, and I think that she has some appeal to him that way.
ROBERTS: All right, Gloria Borger on the telephone for us.
Gloria, thanks so much.
We are still awaiting this announcement here in Dayton, Ohio. John McCain rolling out his vice presidential running mate, Alaska governor, Sarah Palin. The announcement was supposed to be more than 40 minutes ago. So things are delayed just a little bit. Don't forget, it's also John McCain's 72nd birthday today. So, perhaps they're having a little bit of cake before he rolls out his new vice presidential running mate.
We'll be right back with more coverage here on CNN. Don't go anywhere because we're right on top of this story.
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ROBERTS: We are back live this morning covering the pending vice presidential announcement from Senator John McCain, a live picture there from Dayton, Ohio, where he is about to introduce the nation to Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. A single-term governor, she was elected in 2006. She was the mayor of Wasilla before that, which is notable because it is the starting point of the annual Iditarod sled dog race. I don't know that she's ever participated in the Iditarod, but apparently she is a snowmobile racer, as well as an avid hunter and fisherman. A fiscal conservative -- and this could be just what the Republican Party is looking for to energize its convention which opens up on Monday, which of course CNN will have gavel to gavel coverage of.
Let's go live to Dayton and Dana Bash who got confirmation of this story about 45 minutes ago.
Dana, when are we expecting John McCain to come out with Governor Palin? We thought it would be at least 45 minutes ago.
BASH: That's probably the better question right now. We expect them to come soon. This rally was actually originally scheduled for noon, so that's about 15 minutes from now. Then they moved it up, so I think that they're trying to sort of keep the anticipation going here a little bit longer. There might be something else going on.
But one thing that is going to be really interesting that I'm going to be watching for, and John you and I have talked about this off camera a little bit, is the optics of this. Last night when we saw Joe Biden and Barack Obama together, they looked like a team, they looked like a pair. It sort of fit. It's going to be interesting to see John McCain, who, again, today is his 72nd birthday, how he looks, how it appears, him standing next to a 44-year-old woman, a very attractive woman, somebody actually who was a runner-up in a beauty pageant back in her home state of Alaska when she was younger, how that works. Will it make him -- will it bring youth to his ticket and help him sort of pump that up? Or, will it emphasize the fact that he is an older candidate and would be the oldest candidate ever elected as president in the history of this country?
So that is one of the things that I'm going to be really interested in watching when the two of them appear on stage, John.
ROBERTS: All right, Dana Bash for us monitoring the show there in Dayton, Ohio.
Again, not sure when they're going to come out, but it should be within the next few minutes. The question that people are asking this morning, because the background is a little sketchy, based on the fact that she's been the governor of Alaska, which is not typically a part of national politics to the degree that some other states, are like Ohio or Pennsylvania, so let's get a little bit more on who the governor is.
Steve Heimel is a host with Public Radio in Alaska. He joins us on the telephone now.
Steve, what can you tell us about Governor Palin? And first of all, why don't you start by saying how much of a surprise is it in Alaska that she was picked as Senator McCain's running mate?
VOICE OF HEIMEL, ALASKA PUBLIC RADIO NETWORK: Well, I'll tell you, they really kept the lid on it. It's really quite surprising because nobody here had any idea this morning. We're talking with members of the governor's staff, and they, too, had absolutely no idea. Sarah Palin is a reformer. She's squeaky clean, she's young. She's a soccer mom. She definitely is a commercial fisherman. This is very, very interesting to us.
ROBERTS: What about this idea of her being investigated for possible abuse of power in the firing of the public safety commissioner there in Alaska? Apparently some phone calls were made by some member of her administration?
HEIMEL: Yes. It's documented that the person who put the pressure on the state troopers to fire a trooper who was involved in a messy divorce with the governor's sister. That's confirmed. He's lost his job. The question is whether this pressure can be traced back to the governor, and that's what the investigation is about.
ROBERTS: Is there any indication that that is the case at this point, Steve?
HEIMEL: Well, it's probably a difficult job for a prosecutor to make such a trace. But it is true and the governor admits that she really thought this guy ought to be fired. He was not the kind of person she wanted in the troopers, and she didn't like the way her sister was treated.
ROBERTS: The other big question, Steve, surrounding Governor Palin is the amount of experience that she has. Couple of years there as governor. What's the rest of her political background in the state?
HEIMEL: Well, she has virtually none. She was a mayor of a town that's kind of a suburb of Anchorage, and she was on the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which is kind of a political appointment. That's what got her fame because she blew the whistle on another commission member for corrupt activities and he was also, and still is, the chairman of the state Republican Party. So you can imagine the bunctous (ph) politics involved with something like that.
ROBERTS: So, Steve, is there confidence there in the state of Alaska that, God forbid something should happen to John McCain, should he become president, that she would be fully qualified to step into the shoes of the presidency of the United States? HEIMEL: I don't think anybody even knows what that is anymore in these strange times that we're living in. She's been fairly impressive as the governor of Alaska. Many of us never expected that she would be elected against a really experienced former governor, but she was elected and her approval rating stayed high. And they remained pretty good even when the possibility was raised that she was putting too much pressure to get a trooper fired.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, no question she has proven herself to be a dynamic politician in the short two years that she's been in the governor's mansion.
Steve Heimel, of Alaska Public Radio, thanks for being with us.
Let's now turn to our CNN contributor, David Gergen.
David, you've been an adviser to Republican and Democratic White Houses. What do you think of this pick?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You could have knocked me over with a feather on this one, John. John McCain loves to take gambles and this is one of the biggest gambles that I've seen in a long, long time. It's bold and it may work very well because she will serve as (INAUDIBLE) social conservative (INAUDIBLE) in bringing them to his side. And being a woman is going to definitely help. And she is very much a reformer.
They tell me my mic fell off. So I'm just trying to figure out -- can we keep going here?
ROBERTS: David, why don't you just take a second because you are sounding a little bit like the weather man who sat on the microphone when he was trying to give the forecast and discovered that he didn't have it on.
Are you back with us now, David?
GERGEN: Let me just hold this. Yes, I'm fine.
Let me just say this, John --
ROBERTS: Very good. Pick it up where you were.
GERGEN: OK, great. Look, I want to start -- you could have knocked me over with a feather with this one. I can't -- I never expected that he would do this. John McCain loves bold gambles. He's certainly taking one now. And it may very, very well work.
I think one of the things we'll have to watch now is whether America may fall in love with her. She seems like a very winsome woman, she's been feisty, she is a reformer. She's going to clearly appeal to the social conservatives. So -- when she makes her debut on the stage here today and then again Wednesday night at the convention, we'll all be looking forward in suspicious, knowing who she is and she can work very well. But what surprises me so much is that John McCain, again and again and again, has said the transcendent issue of our times is the fight against terrorism and that we live in a dark, dangerous, world. And the most important thing is to have a commander in chief who's ready.
So, here to reach out -- it's the same thing and he's criticized Barack Obama as not being ready, to reach out to Sarah Palin who has no national security experience, no national security exposure and say, you're my standby and I'm 72 years old. And I've had bouts with melanoma. I think that's a very large gamble. And I wonder how it's going to play out with the American people. It's going to be fascinating to watch this.
I do think you've got to give John McCain credit for gambling. But, you gambles -- you can win a gamble and you can lose a gamble.
ROBERTS: On that issue of experience that you were just talking about, David. Is it enough to say, as the McCain campaign did in its press release regarding her naming as the vice presidential running mate. To say that as the governor of the state, she is the commander of the National Guard and she has a son who is in the military who's about to be deployed to Iraq.
GERGEN: No, come on, let's get serious.
One of the things she does have is executive experience as governor. And none of the other candidates in this race has had that at the top. But, it's less than two years. And the city that she was mayor of with what, 8,500 people or so?
So I think it's -- we'll have to learn more about how much travel she's had, how much exposure. But you know, this is a woman I think we're all going to respect. And someone -- at the personal level as a mother, raising a down syndrome child, all of that is very positive and I think everybody's going to be very, very respectful of who she is.
But when it comes to this central question. If the transcendent issue of our times is the fight against terrorism, is this the kind of person John McCain's going to bring in to fight the war on terror? That's what I think a lot of people are going to ask.
ROBERTS: And I'll ask it again. We've asked this question before, David, but, let me ask it again.
People ultimately do not vote for the vice presidential running mate in a general election, they vote for the candidate. So, does this really make any difference other than to at least for a few days, really energizing the Republican Party?
GERGEN: Well, a couple things about that, John. You know, we've been talking on CNN for the last -- during the whole Democratic convention about how are they going to compete in those battleground states like Ohio and Florida? And so the question becomes, are you going to send Governor Palin in as a Republican, into Ohio and expect to win votes out of that?
Are you going to send her into, you know, Pennsylvania and blue collar areas and expect to win votes? I don't quite see that equation working out. It might. The first rule, of course, is to do no harm when you choose somebody. And I thought he would go to a safe choice in that sense. We were looking at Tim Pawlenty, for example, as a safe choice.
I've also known times when people have been nominated as vice president when they've actually been negatives on the ticket. You won't remember this, John, you're too young. But, when Barry Goldwater ran in '64, Bill Miller, New York Congressman. And you know, he wound up being on an American Express card because nobody knew who he was. And that was the case in which a vice presidential actually diminished the ticket.
And I think in the context of what we're finding is the Democrats come out of this convention with a roar. They think they have some momentum. What the Republicans want to do in their convention is to restore their momentum, to come out with a roar.
Now, the challenge is going to be, can Governor Palin make people fall in love with her quickly enough to really get excited and come out of their convention with a lot more momentum, come back into a tie and then fight it out until the rest of the campaign? I think that's what's now hanging in the balance over the next few days. At least that's my preliminary read.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, this is going to give us something extra to watch for over the next few days.
David Gergen, thanks very much, stay with us because we'd love to come back to you. We're still awaiting the announcement. There's some music playing there in Dayton. But they do seem to be delaying it just a little bit. Originally scheduled for noon, pushed up to 11:00, now looks like they're more on track for the original noon announcement.
We're going to take a short break, stay with us. We've got all of the coverage of this presidential announcement, vice presidential running mate on CNN.
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ROBERTS: And then what are we doing? Live picture this morning from Dayton, Ohio, this morning. The pending announcement. Governor Sarah Palin, of Alaska, as John McCain 's vice presidential running mate. And we're expecting that to happen in just a little while now. We've got the best political team in television covering every angle of this story.
John King is with me. And you've been with me all morning, John. And we've been working the BlackBerry and talking to all sorts of Republican sources.
What's the initial reaction broadly here from Republican sources, conservatives, who are looking at John McCain wondering what type of pick he was going to make and he comes up with this one?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Reaction from conservatives is positive. Although, you do get the occasional, we don't know her very well, we need to learn more about her.
But, among anti-abortion groups, among social conservative groups, Christian conservative groups, they do know her because of her record in Alaska. And because when she has been involved more nationally in organizations. Those are the organizations that she has been involved with. Anti-abortion, anti-guy anti-gay marriage. Just had a child a few months ago with downs syndrome. And she knew during the pregnancy that there were problems and she said, this is God's gift. Went forward with the pregnancy. So, she is a hero in what the Republicans call the pro-life community.
There's a big question mark, of course, about her experience. And so as we await for this, I think, many people, including Republicans want to see how she will perform. And we will get the first taste of that on the national stage in Dayton, in just a few minutes.
They love the record, lifetime NRA member, they believe she will play very well out here in the mountain west and the Rocky Mountains. They also believe she will surprise people in small town America, as a mother, as a father of a son who's about to go to Iraq. And as you know, they're saying she's the commander of the Alaska National Guard to try to answer the commander in chief question.
But overwhelmingly positive on the Republican side. As you might predict, it's quite a different picture on the other side.
ROBERTS: Well, let's see what it's like on the Democratic side of things. Hilary Rosen from "Huffington Post" is with us.
You've been talking to folks in the Obama campaign. What do they say?
HILARY ROSEN, "HUFFINGTON POST": Well, the Obama campaign is cautiously optimistic, I would say, on the record. I think off the record, most of them are pretty thrilled for a couple of reasons.
First, I have to say, I'm always intrigued with a politician who will do something that's out of the box. You know, we just might have some surprises from Governor Palin that the country doesn't know. The fact that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, one of the most respected Republican women in the country, said this morning I just don't know anything about her. She couldn't find anything to talk about on CNN. I thought was probably not a good sign, and clearly not smart on the McCain campaign to not warn their key women surrogates.
The women are the undecided vote in this election. There's no question about it. Undecided older women and undecided suburban marrieds. And you know the McCain -- Senator McCain obviously thinks this is going to go a long way to help those women who are attracted to Hillary Clinton.
I think if you were attracted to Hillary Clinton in many ways, it was because she's a qualified woman.
ROBERTS: Let's go to Ed Henry as we're crossing the top of the hour here now, which is the time that the announcement was expected. And we understand that Senator McCain is in the building there in Dayton.
