Alleged Palin Family Video Turns Up on YouTube

By Rogers Cadenhead

Monday, September 01, 2008 at 12:26 PM

Sarah Palin's either going to turn out to be the boldest vice presidential choice in American history or the worst. So little is known about the charismatic and unseasoned Alaska governor that the next 70 days will be a massive public version of This is Your Life, much of which will be a total surprise to the McCain campaign. There are numerous media reports that Palin and her family were not comprehensively vetted prior to her selection as running mate.

Sam Stein alleges on Huffington Post that the first person to pore through the archives of Palin's hometown newspaper, the Valley Frontiersman in Wasilla, Alaska, was a researcher for Barack Obama's campaign this weekend.

The paper's (massive) archives are not online. And when he went to research past content, he was told he was the first to inquire.

"No one else had requested access before," said the source. "It's unbelievable. We were the only people to do that, which means the McCain camp didn't."

Andrew Halcro, an Alaskan politician who ran for governor against Palin as an independent in 2006, wrote yesterday on his blog that the McCain campaign is just now sending staffers to Wasilla:

The campaign of John McCain has sent a staff of eight people into Alaska to conduct background checks and vetting on Governor Sarah Palin.

Word is they have have eight rooms reserved at a Wasilla hotel.

Gail Collins, a Republican and former speaker of the Alaska House, told an Anchorage Daily News reporter that she didn't hear from any party leaders in the state who had spoken to McCain vetters about Palin prior to her selection:

"I said to [my husband] Walt, 'This can't be happening, because his advance team didn't come to Alaska to check her out," Phillips said.

Phillips has been active in the Ted Stevens re-election steering committee and remains in close touch with Sen. Lisa Murkowski and other party leaders, and she said nobody had heard anything about McCain's people doing research on his prospective running mate.

"We're not a very big state. People I talk to would have heard something."

As I said Saturday, I expect a flood of colorful stuff to come out about the Palins, who've never been subjected to scrutiny one-thousandth as intense as what they'll be facing now. This morning, an Alaskan named Steven Oaks posted a 1996 family video on YouTube that's purported to be Todd Palin talking to his daughter Bristol on the day he learned Sarah was elected mayor of Wasilla. Oaks claims the video was in a camera donated to Iditarod Elementary School by the Palins when Bristol was a student in his mother Mary Oaks' class.

The video allegedly shows Todd Palin awakened from bed to hear that his wife has won the election, news he either doesn't take well or jokes with his daughter about. I don't know that it's really Palin, but there's a decent resemblance to a 2007 photo from an Alaskan TV station story and another photo on Flickr.

In the six-minute video, Todd Palin gets a call from his wife where he learns she won. "I know I said you'd never be mayor," he tells his wife. "Of course I'm thrilled. Yes, I'm thrilled. I'm glad. Congratulations." After the call, he tells his daughter Bristol as she operates the camera, "Your momma is the mayor and I didn't think she was gonna win. How can your momma be the mayor and I'm a fisherman?"

He continues, in a sleepy stream-of-consciousness ramble, "How can daddy be the boss if your momma's the mayor? Miss Whale Blubber 1996 is now the mayor. That kinda makes me feel uncomfortable, honey."

Expressing what he characterizes as "private fisherman thoughts," Palin occasionally pleads with his daughter to shut off the camera. "Your momma is a moose hunter. ... Daddy's starting to feel like a fisherman and that's all."

After asking his daughter whether being a fisherman is better than being a mayor and getting the wrong answer, Palin concludes, "Does daddy like that mommy's the mayor? No. Daddy don't like that. ... Daddy's startin' to feel inadequate."

Update: After it became clear that I was in the distinct minority in believing the video might not be a hoax, I started emailing around Alaska to see if I could find someone who knew what Todd Palin looked like in the mid-'90s. The aforementioned Andrew Halcro watched it and sent this response: "Not only fake but insulting." I am a gullible dork.