The Twin Cities played a starring role in the selection of both major-party vice-presidential candidates this year — on stage in the case of Republican Sarah Palin and behind the scenes in the case of Democrat Joe Biden. But just as the grand total of Palin’s purchases on GOP credit cards (which started in Minnesota) was a moving target, the details of Biden’s back-door tete-a-tete with Barack Obama in Minneapolis last August have shifted over time. At issue: Exactly how long did they meet in person at Obama’s hotel, and exactly how many others (and of what gender) was Obama still considering for the veep slot then?

The Wall Street Journal told it this way on Aug 25:

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate reached a pivotal point in a secret meeting on the night of Aug. 6. Sen. Biden was whisked into a Minneapolis hotel room through a back entrance before Sen. Obama left for his Hawaii vacation. They talked one-on-one for 90 minutes. “It was spirited and pragmatic,” says one adviser who was briefed. … None of Sen. Biden’s vulnerabilities was likely a surprise to the Obama team, which conducted a thorough vetting of the candidates. The team, led by Caroline Kennedy and ex-Justice Department official Eric Holder, initially cast a wide net, but in the end focused more on Sens. Biden and [Evan] Bayh and [Virginia] Gov. [Tim] Kaine. Sen. Obama sought private meetings with the three. Sen. Biden’s turn came in Minneapolis in early August, when Sen. Obama was there for a $1,000 a person fund-raiser. He had Sen. Biden sneak into a downtown hotel through the back door. (WSJ)

On Larry King LIve last week (hat tip: Political Animal), Biden said the in-person meeting lasted more than twice as long, and that only one other person was under consideration at that point:

KING: How did you learn — the moment you learned that Senator Obama wanted Senator Biden to be his running mate?

BIDEN: Well, he had called me about a month before he chose me … And I said, “I’ll be vetted, but I — but even if you choose me, I still want to talk to you before that — before I would agree to accept.” And then several — then I got squirreled out to — he was campaigning in Minneapolis-St. Paul. And I got a phone call, would [I] go masquerade myself out there? They provided a plane for me and snuck me into this hotel. And we spent three-and-a-half hours talking about the role of vice president. And he said, “Well, it’s down to you and somebody else.” And he said, “I’ll give you a call later.”

KING: Did you ever know who the other person was?

BIDEN: Well, I think I do, but I don’t want to, you know, speculate on that.

Biden’s Larry King version squares better with what he told the New Yorker (Oct. 20 edition) although Biden lets on that his lone rival is neither man the Wall Street Journal mentioned but a woman — Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius, apparently:

Biden agreed to let Obama’s campaign team consider him, but with a caveat: “I wanted to make sure we understood each other—that, even if I vetted and he wanted me to take the job, I wasn’t committing to do that. When the time was appropriate for him, if I was the guy, I needed to spend at least two or three hours with him to understand what the role would be.” Biden wanted what amounted to an oral contract between him and Obama, spelling out his specific responsibilities in an Obama White House. On August 6th, Biden said, the Obama campaign “smuggled” him into Minneapolis, where Obama was campaigning, and the two senators stayed up late in a suite at the Graves 601 Hotel working out the details of a potential deal. … [Obama] tested Biden’s understanding of how broad his role would be, as opposed to that of another contender — apparently, Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas and the only woman known to be on Obama’s short list. “He said, ‘Well, you know, if I offered this to somebody’ — he named her, a person — he said, ‘That person would be very happy if I assigned them to reorganize the government.’ And he said, ‘They’d be very happy doing that. How about you?’ ” That didn’t sound like much of a job to Biden. “No,” he told Obama. “That’s not what I want to do.”

Full historical analysis in pictures after the jump.

Once being passed over for the McCain ticket sunk in, Pawlenty turned his sights to 2012, burnishing his future appeal to various demographics such as Jewish voters (with the announcement of a trade mission to Israel) and now, it seems, diehard liberals. His key message on Maddow: “I’m available, I’m available.”

Video after the jump, with a transcription of highlights from Pawlenty’s comments on McCain, the Franken-Coleman U.S. Senate race, and whether Gov. Sarah Palin is a drag on the ticket or a future leader of the party. (T-Paw’s sangfroid discussion of the woman who trumped his veep hopes is well worth watching through the end of the clip.)

Here’s a video clip from “The Rachel Maddow Show” (the interview with Tim Pawlenty begins at the 2:25 mark), and below that, a transcription of highlights from the segment:

RACHEL MADDOW: Gov. Pawlenty, it’s a real pleasure to have you on the show tonight. Thank you for being with us.

GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Well Rachel, thanks for giving a Republican a shot on this show. We appreciate it.

MADDOW: Absolutely. I keep asking, but you guys are so recalcitrant. That’s why we’re very happy to have you.

PAWLENTY: I’m available, I’m available.

MADDOW: Oh, very good, very good. Governor, nobody is suggesting that John McCain should stop trying to win, the day before the election. But had he chosen to spend more time in states where Republican incumbents are struggling, like North Carolina, Kentucky, your own state of Minnesota, do you think he would be doing more to help the Republican Party rather than making these repeat visits to a state like Pennsylvania, where really he is very far behind?

PAWLENTY: … If the logic that you’re using is true, then the inverse of the logic should also be true. In other words, why isn’t Barack Obama campaigning in places where he’s got a big lead, where there’s congressional seats at issue? One would be Minnesota. Barack Obama hasn’t been here in months, and yet we have a U.S. Senate race that is essentially tied, with maybe the Republican having a slight advantage, Norm Coleman.

MADDOW: … Senator Obama is up an average of I think about nine points in your home state of Minnesota, and certainly that Senate race is being very closely watched around the country. I feel like it’s pretty clear that if Barack Obama were campaigning with Al Franken, it would help Al Franken. If John McCain were campaigning with Norm Coleman, would it help Norm Coleman?

PAWLENTY: Well, John McCain until not so long ago was doing pretty well in the polls here in MInnesota. Now it’s more of an uphill climb for him. Although last night we had a Survey USA poll in Minnesota that showed the race here at 49-46. If that’s accurate, Minnesota would be within the margin of error.

MADDOW: In looking at the polls in Minnesota, we think of it as a blue state but it really is quite blue this year. We typically think of it as a blue state but it is really quite blue this year. Do you think that is because of the economic crisis? Do you think that is because the McCain camp hasn’t spent too much time there since the RNC? Why isn’t McCain leading in Minnesota at this point?

PAWLENTY: Well, in fairness, Minnesota has a pretty deep liberal or Democratic tradition. We’ve had some success in making a more competitive state, and in the right year with the right candidate and the right message Republicans can win here. And John McCain I think did some good things here, made some good progress here, and still is competitive I believe. But it’s a fiercely independent state, Rachel. The Democrats have an advantage but the plurality of people here are independents or ticket-splitters or swing voters, so it can go back and forth depending on the year, the candidate and the circumstances.

MADDOW: … You, everybody knows, were on the very, very short list to be John McCain’s running mate. It has been a surprise to a lot of people that so many Americans have a strongly negative opinion of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential choice at this point in the race. Do you think that she will ultimately go down as a help or a hurt to John McCain’s chances of winning this race?

PAWLENTY: Well, that’s a debate that will I’m sure go on for a long time but in the end it will be answered by the data. I think Sen. McCain believes that he was facing a deficit position in this campaign, had to do something bold or take a bit of a gamble. I think she has energized the base and Sen. McCain believes she has appeal well beyond just the base. And, you know, that seemed to be working, post-convention. Of course many other things happened since then.

MADDOW: Do you believe that she has appeal beyond the base? Do you think that she’ll be a big part of the leadership of the party moving forward, even if she’s not elected vice president?

PAWLENTY: Well, I think again those questions will be answered by the data, and people can all spout off with their opinions and the like. But clearly she’s a very — person with a lot of skill, I think a lot of ability. And Sen. McCain believes she’s gonna be — has had appeal across the country. And look at those rallies, look at the excitement she has brought out. Not just from Republicans but from people across the country, from other political stripes as well.

A senior adviser said: “Salter was always a big Pawlenty fan — son of a truck driver, salt of the earth, genuine guy. Just thought he was a good, honest addition to the McCain brand as opposed to, say, Romney.” That so much momentum had been building in Palin’s favor was likely a surprise to Salter, says one of the few individuals privy to the vice-presidential selection process: “Mark was new to it, and so it was important to us to make sure that he was in on the situation that was brewing.”

Toward the end of the conversation, though, Palin briefly alluded to the investigation into her firing of Walt Monegan, an investigation that she described as “Tasergate.” The term has its origins in the right-wing blogosphere, where a commenter named “Teflon Dad” apparently recommended the label in early September. From Teflon Dad, the term ascended the right-wing food chain, from Glenn Reynolds to Rush Limbaugh to Fox News, where the Hall of Fame Bush Fluffer Carl Cameron apparently mentioned it on-air.

Since the legislative inquiry pertains to Palin’s alleged abuse of power and not to the actions of State Trooper Mike Wooten — who did in fact Taser his own stepson – the phrase makes little sense. To draw a crude analogy, it would be like claiming that the Nixon administration was toppled by “Papergate,” since the White House Plumbers who broke into the Watergate Hotel were initially created in response to Daniel Ellsberg’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. The duplicitous phrase “Tasergate,” however, is unintentionally revealing; Palin has consistently argued that the dismissal of Monegan was completely unrelated to his refusal to fire Wooten. Indeed, in her explanation yesterday, Palin argued that she removed the commissioner “because his strengths were in other areas. It wasn’t in running an entire department. There was some, some duties there that he was not able to fulfill.” By referring to the affair as “Tasergate,” Palin unwittingly reinforces the central question in the legislative investigation, which is her alleged willingness to use public office to revisit what had originated as an intra-family conflict.

David Noon is a professor of history at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, the author of the great, sort-of-on-hiatus Axis of Evel Knievel blog, and a contributor to Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Video and more after the jump.

“Stylistically, she’s got many, many strengths,” Pawlenty gushes. “Substantively, she’s got an executive leadership. There’s a confidence there that’s decisive, that I think is crisp.”

Echoing a logic of identity politics that Republicans have also advanced this week in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, Pawlenty pushes Palin’s personal interests and family experiences:

She’s somebody who can speak to people who are outdoors, people who’ve got disabled children, people who have members of the military, and more. She has a series of life experiences that when she speaks to people, people say, “You know, that’s kind of like me. That’s kind of my story.”

“But she’s not being asked to be local councilor,” protests SkyNews interviewer Jeremy Thompson. “She’s being asked to be vice president of the United States!”

At which point Pawlenty again cites Palin’s two years as governor, before conceding at one limitation in Palin’s portfolio.

“Does she have the deepest foreign policy experience? No-o-o-o,” volunteers the longtime McCain backer, who SkyNews bills as having been “heavily tipped” for the vice presidential slot himself — and who just wrapped up a five-day trade mission to Spain and England where he twice keynoted international gathering between meetings with ambassadors and top European foreign policy figures.

In the video, Pawlenty also discusses his feelings about getting passed over, and exactly when he heard the bad news: “Officially, as I was eating breakfast.”

In 2000, McCain told the late Tim Russert on “Meet the Press”:

“The vice president has two duties. One is to inquire daily as to the health of the president, and the other is to attend the funerals of Third World dictators. And neither of those do I find an enjoyable exercise.”

[McCain/TP what-might-have-been video below the jump.]

McCain gave his more standard version of the job description in 2006 while in Minnesota to raise money for Gov. Tim Pawlenty:

“The vice president of the United States really only has two duties. One is to break a tie vote in the Senate, in case it’s a 50-50 vote, and the other is to inquire daily as to the health of the president. So I’m not sure that Gov. Pawlenty with the heavy responsibilities he has here would be interested in that.”

In video from TPT, starting at about the six-minute mark, McCain’s remark is followed by Pawlenty’s own standard line in which he swears his lack of interest in the job of vice president (whatever the duties). But seeing the two men together, batting around the vice presidential question early on, offers a glimpse of what might have been, had T-Paw been McCain’s pick — not the stuff of must-see TV, admittedly, but also not the cringefest that a dumbfounded nation awaits today.

Sen. John McCain’s limited release of his medical records last spring had on-again/off-again drama that’s now a hallmark of his campaign. It also left the world with insufficient data by which to judge McCain’s chances of surviving a term or two as president.

Once McCain tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, the summer’s steady stream of speculation on his life expectancy began to rise rapidly, flowing from all quarters and corners of the globe — from baseball stat-heads to L.A. psychics to actuaries in Australia.

It was, coincidentally, revelations in medical records that led Sen. George McGovern to drop Sen. Thomas Eagleton as his running mate on the 1972 Democratic ticket — a move McCain has increasingly been called upon to repeat over the course of Sarah Palin’s agonizing, slow-drip roll-out as vice presidential nominee (which has already outlasted Eagleton’s 18 days). A poor showing at Thursday’s vice presidential debate could release the floodgates.

Waiting in the wings would be veepstakes runner-up Tim Pawlenty, who last weekend winged to Europe for an abruptly announced trade mission studded with high-level diplomatic sessions — a well-timed occasion for Minnesota’s governor to burnish foreign policy credentials conspicuously missing in his Alaskan counterpart.

Should McCain seek to switch sidekicks at the moment that United States is toying with global economic collapse, the already-vetted Pawlenty — who keynoted an international conference in Madrid on Monday and takes tea at 10 Downing Street today — would bring to the fading GOP ticket fresh and timely lessons from Spain and Britain on how best to slip gently into the role of a fallen world power.

During his travels across the country to stump for Sen. John McCain (and bid for the GOP veep slot), Gov. Tim Pawlenty positively owned the phrase “Sam’s Club Republican.” Today T-Paw hits the road again — D.C.-bound in fact, but with his vice presidential hopes a pale memory — for an event billed as the Sustainability Solutions Summit. There he’ll be empaneled with S. Robson “Rob” Walton, son of Sam Walton, who positively owns Sam’s Club (not to mention Wal-Mart). Should they come to blows over the finer points of the nation’s energy policy or reducing waste in packaging, the Minnesota-born former CNN presenter Aaron Brown is on hand to referee. The panel is webcast live starting at 8:30 a.m. CDT.

Lost in the hubbub over Hurricane Gustaf, party leaders’ phone-ins and Republican preganancy rates is what should have been a triumphal return by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzegger to the Nicollet Island Park Pavilion in Minneapolis, where last night his state’s delegation held a late-night party under twinkling red, white and blue lights.

The pavilion — a former boiler works and rubber factory — together with its surrounding parkland grounds portrayed a granary and a dump, respectively, in Schwarzenegger’s 1996 film, “Jingle All the Way” (pictured above). Filming tied up the site for the better part of a winter, with Schwarzegger in his pre-politics days sometimes sighted marching down nearby lanes alongside his body double, both chomping cigars.

The film was not among the several Arnold flicks handed out gratis on DVD at last night’s event, according to a Los Angeles Times blog, which cites a bartender at the Nicollet Island Pavilion who noted the irony in that “Jingle” was filmed there. 

Talks over a state budget crunch kept Schwarzenegger in Sacramento this week, meaning he missed a scheduled RNC speaking slot as well as state delegation events like last night’s. Such details didn’t keep Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at home earlier this year, but then Pawlenty was nursing an ambition for an office — vice president — which Schwarzenegger can’t hope to attain under the U.S. Constitution’s current native-son requirement.