McCain camp discloses pregnancy of VP pick's daughter; Obama calls for restraint

THE UPS AND DOWNS of Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin and her ever-stunning push to become vice president could've been a great episode of TV's wacky "Northern Exposure" - except the script might have been rejected as unbelievable.

The latest bizarre plot twist came yesterday when John McCain's campaign confirmed that Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to marry the father of the child, who officials said is named "Levi."

In a nation with a still-high teen-pregnancy rate, the news that an unmarried high school girl is with child isn't all that amazing - even if her mother is a "family values" conservative who has supported abstinence-only sex ed.

But the way that the Bristol Palin story came out - with the McCain camp blaming the need for disclosure on wild conspiracy theories on a number of blogs (see Tattle on Page 4) - was unprecedented. And the whole drama underscored the kind of People magazine nature of the excitement and controversy over an ex-beauty queen turned 44-year-old "hockey mom" with one son bound for Iraq and an infant born with Down syndrome.

The real question is, with America poised to pick a new president in a time of war and economic turmoil, how much does the firestorm over a GOP veep wannabe and her family matter?

That depends on who you ask. The Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, came out in the strongest possible terms yesterday for keeping candidates' families out of the race.

Obama told a news conference in Michigan that "I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be a topic of our politics."

Some pundits and politicians argued that the new disclosure - and all the focus on Palin's life as a mom - will only strengthen the GOP ticket, by humanizing the Alaska governor.

"The media doesn't understand life membership in the NRA; they don't understand getting up at 3 a.m. to hunt a moose; they don't understand eating a mooseburger; they don't understand being married to a guy who likes to snowmobile for fun," Florida Rep. Adam Putnam told the Politico Web site. "I am not surprised that they don't get it. But Americans get it."

But other pundits and Obama supporters said the pregnancy revelation is another piece of a more important story about the Palin pick - that McCain's decision to select her was impulsive and was done with very little vetting of her background.

Indeed, another disclosure yesterday - that Palin has hired a lawyer to represent her in a probe of the firing of her sister's estranged state trooper husband during a bitter custody case - carries the potential for much greater political damage than the pregnancy story.

In fact, a string of surprising stories - including one last night by ABC News that Palin and her husband once belonged to a fringe party seeking the secession of Alaska from the United States - suggests minimal deliberation before Palin was chosen. There were reports that the McCain team was sending as many as 10 lawyers to Alaska to double-check Palin's background.

The Palin controversies overshadowed what otherwise was already an extraordinary day in American politics, when what was to be an unusual Labor Day opening of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul was all but wiped out by concern over the Gulf region and the arrival of Hurricane Gustav.

Planned speeches to the delegates by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were scrubbed. Instead, Laura Bush and Cindy McCain made appeals for hurricane relief. McCain himself was in Philadelphia yesterday but made little splash (see Clout on Page 6), spending his afternoon in private meetings including one with Cardinal Justin Rigali.

With TV focused on Gustav and blogs buzzing over the Palin family, there was little that McCain could have done to cut through the media clutter. Most experts doubted the revelations would hurt McCain or Palin.

"Despite all the hullabaloo, when people are polled we find out that the candidates for vice president didn't make any difference," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia history professor and political pundit. He said there would only be problems for Palin if the party's base of evangelical voters was turning against her - and the opposite seems to be happening.

Indeed, Tony Perkins, the head of the conservative Family Research Council, e-mailed reporters yesterday afternoon with a vote of confidence for the controversial GOP veep pick.

"Fortunately, Bristol is following her mother and father's example of choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation," Perkins said, referring to Sarah Palin's recent decision to give birth to her own newborn with Down syndrome. "We are committed to praying for Bristol and her husband to be and the entire Palin family as they walk through a very private matter in the eyes of the public." *