The Surrogate Deficit

Joe Biden was all over the teevee last night backing up his running mate, and he was quite good. Sarah Palin was nowhere to be found, showing up for a quick photo-op at the Irish Pub in Philly (good bar) and declining all interviews. Given the interviews we've seen from her, you can imagine why. But also she probably didn't want to talk about any of the new information revealed about her, from the witchcraft pastor to her corruption problems, which I'm going to call the Alaskan tip:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has made a crackdown on gift-giving to state officials a centerpiece of her ethics reform agenda, has accepted gifts valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state, a review of state records shows.

The 41 gifts Palin accepted during her 20 months as governor include honorific tributes, expensive artwork and free travel for a family member. They also include more than $2,500 in personal items from Calista, a large Alaska native corporation with a variety of pending state regulatory and budgetary issues, and a gold-nugget pin valued at $1,200 from the city of Nome, which lobbies on municipal, local and capital budget matters, documents show.

About a quarter of the entities bestowing gifts on the governor are represented by one of Alaska's most influential mining lobbyists, who said in an interview that she was not involved in the tributes. The lobbyist, Wendy Chamberlain, has a relationship with the governor's family through the friendship of their teenage daughters.

The McCain campaign is so desperate to keep Palin under wraps that they lose what is supposed to be the key function of a Vice Presidential nominee: advocating for the top of the ticket. This thing just screams mistake now.