September 2, 2008
Posted: 03:30 PM ET
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) – Three top Republicans — including two who reportedly held top spots on John McCain’s V.P. shortlist — expressed confidence Tuesday in the McCain campaign’s vetting of Sarah Palin, and said that her daughter’s pregnancy is a private matter that will have a negligible impact on the presidential race. Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney each spoke to a handful of reporters in Minneapolis after a pair of convention-related events. Pawlenty and Romney, both passed over by McCain in favor of Palin, said the matter of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy should be off the table in the campaign. “The personal life of her juvenile 17-year-old daughter is not fair game, so I’m disappointed that that’s even an issue that would come up,” Pawlenty said after an education forum here, adding that he had read in the papers that she had been vetted “thoroughly.”
Romney, who attended a Republican luncheon on Israel, said he thought Palin was “vetted effectively” and that McCain “was aware of her daughter’s challenges.” “But you know I sort of take the same approach as Barack Obama does to this,” Romney told CNN. “This matter is private. Ought to be kept out of politics.” Gingrich, who hosted the education forum at which Pawlenty spoke, said the heightened focus on Palin was only natural, comparing her circumstances to his own rise from relative obscurity to becoming Speaker of the House in 1994. “There’s a sudden explosion into the stratosphere that’s going to disorienting,” he said. “She’s going to have some mistakes. People need to understand that.” But nothing uncovered by the news media in recent days, he said, will have much bearing on the opinions of voters. “I don’t know of anything we have learned right now that has any significant relevance to her being an effective candidate and an effective vice president,” he said. Filed under: John McCain Mitt Romney Newt Gingrich Sarah Palin Tim Pawlenty
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