The Battle within the Battle

One section of this morning's ADN article on VECO money in the gubernatorial race really grabbed me:

Palin's running mate, Sean Parnell, received two $500 checks from Veco officers in August, including one from Veco chief executive officer Bill J. Allen, and collected about $16,000 while running for the Legislature in the 1990s.

Palin, meantime, spent the primary election defending criticism from the Voice of the Times -- a separate editorial space produced by Veco that appears in the Daily News everyday.

While Palin often draws heat from the oil industry for her association with a natural gas pipeline plan that's at odds with the route sought by oil companies, Parnell is a former oil lobbyist. Can they co-exist on the same ticket?

As you'd expect, the Palin camp makes all the right noises about Parnell but the pairing did strike me as odd on election night. Parnell strikes me as the candidate of the Republican establishment and Palin, clearly, was the maverick outsider.

Coming on the heels of the ongoing (I assume) spat between Palin and Randy Ruedrich, it makes for an interesting battle-within-a-battle. Not only is there the Palin v. Knowles campaign, there's also the Palin v. Ruedrich disagreement, a sub-part of which is the Palin v. Parnell differences.

I'm sure Palin and Parnell will be able to smooth things over on the surface but it does strike me as yet another opening for an experienced campaigner like Tony Knowles to exploit.