Vice President

No, Tim Pawlenty did not get the vice presidential nod from the McCain campaign.

But there’s still a Minnesota connection in McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his VP.

Palin’s new director of communications and press secretary, Bill McAllister, spent a chunk of his career in Minnesota, including a stint at our own Saint Paul Legal Ledger. McAllister returns to St. Paul next week during the RNC.

“I haven’t been [there] in five years. It’s kind of a weird way to come back,” McAllister said on Friday afternoon. “The governor was already scheduled to speak to the convention.”

McAllister, 52, was born in New York, but his family moved to Minnesota when he was 15 years old. McAllister graduated from Washburn High School in south Minneapolis in 1974 and earned a degree in mass communications from Hamline University in St. Paul.

McAllister worked at the St. Cloud Times from 1980 to 1991, where he spent seven years covering the state Legislature. McAllister served as managing editor of the Saint Paul Legal Ledger from 1997 to 1999.

Prior to joining Palin’s staff, McAllister had been Capitol bureau chief for NBC affiliate KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska.

A campaign blog on the Washington Post has already reported that McAllister got the news of Palin’s selection from his former fourth estate colleagues very, very early Friday morning.