Scrutiny of VP pick comes with territory

PALMER — Gov. Sarah Palin and her family, like it or not, have been the hottest story in the nation since Friday.

But some are saying the media has cast the Palin family in an unfair light, especially after the Palins told the world their teen daughter Bristol is pregnant.

The media, mainstream and bloggers ran with the story.

State Rep. Carl Gatto, R-Palmer, said Wednesday the national press is gunning for long-forgotten information about the Palins.

“They’re hot on the trail,” Gatto said.

Gatto said he’s been contacted by numerous news organizations, and the new topic they seem to want to know about is Todd Palin, the governor’s husband.

“I said he’s a helluva snowmachiner,” Gatto said before the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce meeting Wednesday.

The race for the presidency in recent days seems to have turned into a Barack Obama vs. Sarah Palin contest as the limelight shifted from Sen. John McCain to his surprise pick for a running mate.

A new advertisement from the McCain campaign touts what it calls Palin’s executive experience, calling Obama simply full of words. The Obama campaign called the ad “borderline ridiculous.”

Palin was a Wasilla City Council member, then Wasilla mayor before becoming Alaska’s first female governor in 2006. She hit the national stage Aug. 29 when McCain introduced her as his running mate at a rally in Dayton, Ohio.

Regardless of who is better suited for office, it’s become clear Wasilla and its former basketball playing beauty queen have become, and will possible stay, the center of news cycles though the general election.

The question some are raising centers on if the media is concentrating its efforts unfairly on Palin.

Gatto said he’s OK with how the media has covered the first-term governor, save for the attention thrown on her family. That attention, including the furor over the Palins’ announcement their 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, to Todd Palin’s DUI charge 22 years ago, has angered some Palin fans locally. Many say the governor has been unduly harped on because she is a woman.

But Brian Patrick O’Donoghue, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the news media has been completely fair to Palin.

“She invited that attention by agreeing to serve on the ticket,” said O’Donoghue, who is a former Frontiersman and Fairbanks News-Miner reporter and has reported for papers in Baltimore, New York and Washington, D.C.

O’Donoghue said the immense amount of media attention on Palin in the short time after McCain announced her as his running mate is just the media doing its job.

“I think the main thing is that she’s so unknown,” O’Donoghue said. “That there was reporting that needed to be done.”

He added the national media from the Lower 48 likely came to Wasilla with preconceived notions about what it takes to run a small town, possibly thinking no one from a rural area could be qualified for the vice president position. Those reporters probably didn’t realize the complexities of managing a growing city like Wasilla, O’Donoghue said.

The reporting, both positive and negative, could serve to further raise Palin’s star.

“I think the details of her life and her career, as they filter out in the next short weeks of this campaign, are only going to captivate,” O’Donoghue said.

As for the attention lumped on Palin’s daughter, O’Donoghue said if it were Obama who had the same situation the media would have pounced as well. In that case, reporters would have likely focused on Obama’s race and issues involved with his background in that respect.

Regardless of what is being written about her, Palin’s captivation seems to be spreading rapidly.

Embattled U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens threw his support behind Palin Wednesday when he addressed the crowd at the Palmer chamber.

“I’m delighted to be here in Governor Palin’s hometown,” Stevens said. “Our state is really at the precipice of an exciting future.”

Stevens, who was at the chamber meeting to talk about energy issues, said if Palin were to find herself in the vice president’s office it could mean an expedited route to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“We literally can blaze a trail to the future for the country,” Stevens said.

Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.