As Sarah Palin's Family Life Becomes Public, Will She Stay on the GOP Ticket?

The questions surrounding the family life of the putative Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, are deepening and not going to go away, despite efforts by Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain to move on to other issues.

In the past 36 hours, a Daily Kos blogger assembled photographs and other documentation alleging that Palin was the grandmother, not the mother of five-month-old Trig Palin, the infant she has said is her fifth child. The Kos reports said that Palin has been "lying" for months about the infant's parentage, in order to protect the child's real mother, her 17-year-old daughter.

Then on Monday, in response to a Reuters report about those allegations, the McCain campaign released a statement from Sarah and Todd Palin that said their 17-year-old daughter was now pregnant, and would carry the baby and soon marry the father. The campaign's response implies that Palin's daughter could not be the five-month-old infant's mother because of her current pregnancy.

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family," the Palins' statement said. "We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi's privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates."

Asked Monday, Obama said the Palin pregnancy should be "off limits."

"Let me be as clear as possible... I think people's families are off limits and people's children are especially off limits," he said while campaigning in Michigan, adding his mother was 18 years old when she gave birth. "It has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as vice president."

There is little chance the media will respect the Palin family's privacy, not when there are legitimate larger questions about what the surprise choice of Palin as McCain's running mate reveals about the GOP presidential candidate's judgment and temperament. The facts surrounding the Palin family's pregnancies may not become known, but they do suggest the Alaska governor will at the very least have many distractions while she is campaigning this fall, to say nothing of her fitness to become commander-in-chief.

Whether Palin will remain on the 2008 GOP ticket is not a matter of idle speculation. Recent presidential campaigns have seen candidacies abruptly end after candidates are caught lying or are burdened by the disclosure of personal issues that question their ability to lead.

Just 20 years ago, the Democrats' vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Deleware) saw his own presidential bid implode after he plagiarized British politician Neil Kinnock. Even this weekend, that ghost resurfaced as Obama and Biden were jointly interviewed on CBS News 60 Minutes. Ironically, as the Palin story was unfolding, ABC Reporter Steve Kroft reminded Biden of the plagarism episode and noted today's GOP was planning a campaign ad about it.

"I made a mistake 20, 21, 22 years ago," Biden told ABC. "I was arrogant. I didn't think I had to prepare. I showed up at the debate and I failed to quote somebody. A guy named Neil Kinnock. And I just ask people and everyone else, look at the last 20 years of my career since that allegation occurred."

A closer analogy would the fate of Thomas Eagleton, who for 18 days in 1972 was the vice presidential running mate of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern. Eagleton, who died in March 2007, at the time was a 42-year-old Democratic Senator from Missouri. He failed to tell the McGovern campaign's vice presidential selection team that he had been treated for depression, including electroshock therapy.

His New York Times obituary describes what transpired next.