Vetting teams scour pasts of potential VPs

WASHINGTON -- Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who campaigned last week with Barack Obama as news stories weighed his vice presidential prospects, is a blank slate to most Americans. So is Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who deflected questions about running with John McCain during a recent appearance at the National Press Club.

At the same time, teams of lawyers, accountants and other campaign aides are learning a lot about them.

Known to the campaigns as "vetters," they are combing through the tax returns, campaign-finance reports, financial disclosure statements and other personal information of potential VP picks. They are sworn to secrecy as they search for a hidden time bomb that could derail a presidential campaign.

One goal: Determine "how the crazy, cynical left or right of the (political) spectrum is going to misuse the information," said Washington lawyer Lanny Davis, who vetted Cabinet candidates, including Janet Reno, who became President Bill Clinton's attorney general.

"I had 10 or 15 people on my team: two thirds lawyers, a couple accountants, a couple regular people," Davis said. "We looked at taxes and financial statements, political positions and, the most distasteful part, personal behavior."

Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, who was vetted by Democratic nominee John Kerry's campaign in 2004, said he was asked for "every piece of paper I could put my hands on," from his state Senate voting records to the budgets he had submitted as a city mayor. The vetters also wanted local newspaper columns written by his wife, as well as their health records and tax returns.

"We turned over 30 banker boxes full of material to a law firm in D.C.," he said, before sitting down for a seven-hour interview with vetters and then a two-hour dinner with Kerry, who ultimately selected North Carolina's John Edwards.

The Obama and McCain campaigns won't discuss the process or even confirm who is being examined. McCain's VP search is being run by Washington lawyer A.B. Culvahouse, while Obama's is supervised by Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, a former senior Justice Department official.