KEY POINTS:
Since she was introduced to a stunned public and press last weekend, two Sarah Palins have jostled in the limelight.
There's the woman of unusual, beguiling contradictions.
That's the Palin people can't help cheering for whatever their political colours - the smart, earthy, hard-working career mother who refuses to stay in a box of people's expectations of what women should be like and do.
It's safe to say there has never before, and likely never will be again, a state governor who can juggle nappy-changing duties, run a budget meeting one day, pose for Vogue the next and go caribou hunting in her spare time.
This is the woman who claims to have little time for "good ol' boys", wasteful spending and big business interests - at least some of which is true.
AP reports that while on Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she investigated a fellow member, who resigned. She later filed an ethics complaint against the state's Republican attorney-general, who also resigned. As Governor, Palin overhauled the state's ethics laws, and pushed to build a natural gas pipeline despite opposition from the oil industry.
But then there's also the polarising Palin - whose values and limited CV remind people of their political colours and where they stand on the left-right divide.
This Palin is anti-abortion regardless of the circumstances, thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in schools, believes in abstinence programmes rather than sex education, reportedly asked if she could get some books banned at a library, is sceptical about global warming and, the Times reports, laughed on air as a talk-radio host described one of her political opponents - a cancer survivor - as a "cancer" and a "b****".
She told students at a church that the US sent troops to fight in Iraq on a "task that is from God."
This Palin - swimming against her rebellious, reformer image - procured millions of federal funds for pet projects, raised taxes, supported an expensive bridge plan before she turned against it and had at least some ties to discredited Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.
Most importantly, this Palin's chief qualifications to be Vice-President and potentially leader of the most powerful nation on earth consist of several years as mayor of a tiny town, less than two years as governor of a state of fewer than 700,000 people and commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Her lack of experience is reflected in some of the barely straight-faced arguments advanced on her behalf.
Republican nominee John McCain said: "She's been commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard ... she's had judgment on these issues. She's had 12 years of elected office experience, including travelling to Kuwait."
Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman Robert Gleason, referring to Palin and the Alaska guard, said: "If the [Russian] bear ever comes, he's coming that way." A point echoed by Cindy McCain: "Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia."
The Republicans are still pushing their "ready to lead" argument, weighed down with McCain's hefty resume, but also with the difficult-to-sustain claim that Palin is at least as prepared as Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
The tactic of Republican surrogates to compare Palin's experience to Obama's cleverly demeans him, comparing as it does a running mate with a headliner. Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney yesterday overlooked Obama's entire Senate and Illinois Senate career in a CNN interview saying "she's not just a community organiser" as Obama was.
The overall Republican strategy with Palin is a familiar one.
Having roused the "base" by sending a shiver of excitement through the Republican evangelical wing, the party will use her to try to unlock a cultural connection with women and conservative "Reagan Democrats" in the key battleground states - the people who had little time for Obama in the Democratic primaries.
Palin pushed hard on this theme yesterday with her self-description of being a "small town mayor" and reference to Obama's 'bitter' comments.
But the Republicans have, rather incongruously, also been attempting to cast McCain and Palin as the insurgents within ... well ... themselves.
Here's former Washington senator and lobbyist Fred Thompson:
"Give me a tough Alaskan Governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the Union - and won - over the beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week ... She is a courageous, successful reformer who is not afraid to take on the establishment ... Sound like anyone else we know? ... She and John McCain are not going to care how much the alligators get irritated when they get to Washington, they're going to drain that swamp."
And here's Senator Joe Lieberman:
"If John McCain was just another go-along partisan politician, he never would have taken on corrupt Republican lobbyists, or big corporations that were cheating the American people, or powerful colleagues in Congress who were wasting taxpayer money. But he did.
"Governor Palin, like John McCain, is a reformer. She's taken on the special interests and the political power-brokers in Alaska and reached across party lines to get things done. The truth is, she is a leader we can count on to help John shake up Washington."
The convention delegates are currently cheerleaders to its in-house, officially-approved rebels with a cause.
Many Republicans hated McCain for taking stands against the party in the past. Now only Republicans can apparently clean up the town the party has ruled - in the White House, the House and the Senate - for most of the past eight years.
McCain campaign chiefs have worked hard to bash criticisms of the Palin decision and journalistic investigation of what kind of leader she could be as smears and sexism against a plucky battler from a Democratic-leaning media elite. The Republicans will hope to create empathy with women and those crucial small-town voters.
Palin said: "I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But ... I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country."
On Politico this week, Florida Representative Adam Putnam outlined the Palin appeal:
"The media doesn't understand life membership in the NRA; they don't understand getting up at 3am to hunt a moose; they don't understand eating a mooseburger; they don't understand being married to a guy who likes to snowmobile for fun. I am not surprised that they don't get it. But Americans get it. A mooseburger means she is like one of us. She is not some jackass who's gone Washington."
Can it work? Two election wins to George W. Bush suggest that values and identity voting are not to be underestimated. Neither is Palin. Yesterday she showed herself to be a solid, forceful speaker, as good at throwing a jab at Obama as anyone else on the Republican roster.
The McCain campaign received at least US$47 million in contributions for August - McCain's biggest monthly money total so far - with US$10 million flooding in after Palin's candidacy was announced.
Polsters Rasmussen say that 57 per cent of Republicans now say they feel enthusiastic about the ticket, an improvement on previous surveys.
Rasmussen's polling shows a lot of doubt about Palin's readiness to step in as President. While only 16 per cent of Republicans believe Palin isn't up to it, 74 per cent of Democrats and 48 per cent of independents disagree. Voters overall think she is not ready by a 48-29 per cent margin. And 41 per cent of women say they are now less likely to vote for McCain because of Palin, compared with 31 per cent more likely to support him.
The polls to watch for in the next few weeks are those from states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, Colorado, Florida and New Mexico. If McCain gains in those states, his gamble will be paying off.
Three CNN polls yesterday showed bumps for Obama in Minnesota and Iowa and the Democrat fractionally ahead in Ohio. Nationally, Obama's lead over the past two days in five polls has varied from 5 to 9 points, giving him an RCP average of 5.8. Polls next week - after voters have had time to chew over the Republican convention, where speaker after speaker has been delivering the party's messages with superb, disciplined simplicity - will be more relevant.
The Democrats, from their point of view, need to keep hammering away at the issues that matter to the voters, especially the economy. But the election may depend in part on which image of Sarah Palin gains more traction with the electorate over the next few weeks - the likeable, gutsy reformer or the rookie, rightwing governor with too little experience to put a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Political chat versus facts:
Palin: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
The facts: As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and travelled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totalling US$27 million. In her term as Governor, Alaska has requested nearly US$750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a US$398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere".
Palin: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."
The facts: Barack Obama has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. In Illinois, he was the leader on two contentious measures: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
- ADDTIONAL REPORTING BY AP
