If you hadn't heard of Sarah Palin when John McCain picked her as his running mate in 2008, you were in good company. Meghan McCain, the outspoken daughter of the GOP presidential nominee, didn't know who she was, either.
"My initial reaction was, 'Who the hell is Sarah Palin?' Like everybody else," the younger McCain revealed on Tuesday night.
In an appearance on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, McCain said that she cried after finding out that her father would run with Palin -- a woman she calls a "time bomb" in her new book, "Dirty Sexy Politics."
With plenty of wild stories in the book, it may come as no surprise that John McCain apparently didn't influence what went into it. He only read it a few days ago and learned some things -- like the revelation that his daughter almost overdosed on Xanax the day before the election. Meghan McCain also dished to Leno about behind-the-scenes dealing with image consultants and the Secret Service, not to mention getting "fired" from her dad's campaign (Leno's term, not her's).
Of course, it's her relationship with Sarah Palin that will spark the most discussion inside the Beltway. "I found out an hour before I went on stage with her," McCain said of the nomination. "I think they were scared I would say something or whatever. Like the rest of the country, I had no idea who she was and I was actually crying on the bus on the way to the rally."
McCain said that at the announcement, "I found out who she was, and I remember being on stage and distinctly thinking, 'God, let her not have any skeletons in the closet. Please God.' And if you see any video footage of it, I looked panicked."
Asked if Palin is likely to run for President in 2012, McCain said she wasn't sure. "I don't know if doing a reality show is necessarily the most presidential behavior. But Obama made anything possible, so I don't know."
McCain dodged a question about whether she would actually vote for Palin if nominated, making it clear she didn't want her to get that far. "I'm Team Romney."
With the release of her book, Meghan McCain has opened up significantly compared to 2009, when she said that, "Sarah Palin is the only part of the campaign that I won't comment on publicly."
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