US Republican presidential nominee John McCain has a new attack dog. Her name is Sarah Palin, and she bites hard. The Alaska governor's mocking critique of Democrat Barack Obama and the Washington elite charged up Republicans looking for signs of hope that she and McCain can win the White House on November 4.
Now it is McCain's turn. The Arizona senator, who was nominated for president after Palin spoke, will deliver a televised address on Thursday night accepting that nomination. Palin, 44, McCain's vice presidential running mate, drew shouts of "Sarah, Sarah" on Wednesday in her national political debut, unleashing red-meat rhetoric against Obama that had been largely lacking from this four-day event.
She cheerfully shot down criticism from Democrats that her experience as governor and ex-mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, did not match Obama's as leader of a large presidential campaign. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organiser,' except that you have actual responsibilities," she said in a swipe at Obama's own early career in Chicago.
Democrats argue that McCain, by picking the relatively untested and unknown Palin, had ceded his argument that Obama was too inexperienced to be president. But McCain said he was satisfied she had the right experience and "over time people will compare her accomplishments with that of Senator Obama and his are very meager." "She is experienced, she's talented and she knows how to lead," McCain told ABC's "Good Morning America." "This is what Americans want. They don't want somebody who is, frankly, necessarily gone to Harvard or an Ivy League school."
Palin also found Obama's lofty style of rhetoric wanting and devoid of details of where he would take the country if elected although she offered few policy specifics of her own. "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 (Illinois) state senate ... What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?" she asked.
She resurrected Obama's comment from his primary battle with Democrat Hillary Clinton that people in small towns are bitter and cling to guns and religion. "I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening," she said.
The crowd loved it, roaring with approval and waving signs that said "Palin Power." They were most enthusiastic when Palin dismissed the "Washington elite" - pundits and commentators she said had questioned whether she should be on the ticket. Experts said Palin, only the second woman to be a vice presidential nominee of a major political party, was a plus for the Republican ticket, especially in attracting the conservative base that has sometimes been at odds with McCain.
They say she could be a huge advantage in helping Republicans hold Western states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that are flirting with voting for Obama this year. "She is immediately going to be a huge attraction," said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. "She will draw huge crowds wherever she goes. She really has excited the base of the Republican Party in a way that probably nobody has done since Ronald Reagan."
Her Democratic vice presidential counterpart, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, took what was likely to be his party's line - praise her speaking but not her message. "I was impressed by that," Biden said of the speech on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I also was impressed with what I didn't hear. I didn't hear a word mentioned about the middle class or health care or how people are going to fill up their tanks. I didn't hear a single word about how you're going to get a kid through college. So I was impressed by the speech but also about what I didn't hear spoken."
The spotlight will be trained on McCain on Thursday night. The 72-year-old former prisoner of war in Vietnam and long-time Arizona senator faces the biggest speech of the campaign when millions of Americans will be tuned in to watch. McCain is slightly behind Obama in public opinion polls following the Democrats' rousing convention last week and is facing Americans in the mood for change after nearly eight years under unpopular Republican President George W. Bush.