ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claimed her historic spot as the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee Wednesday night, uncorking a smiling, sarcastic attack on Sen. Barack Obama and winning cheers of acceptance and approval after a tumult-filled first week on the national stage.
She vowed to the Republican National Convention — and millions more around the country — that she would help presidential nominee Sen. John McCain bring real change to Washington, saying “he’s a man who’s there to serve his country and not just his party.”
McCain joined her on stage, to even bigger cheers. In an anti-climactic roll call vote, the delegates then awarded him the presidential nomination he has sought for a decade — propelling him into the fall campaign. At 72, the Arizona senator is the oldest first-time nominee in history.
The 44-year-old Palin, scarcely known a week ago, had top billing on the third night of the convention. The first female vice presidential candidate in party history, she made her solo national debut after days of tabloid-like scrutiny of her and her family.
Some of the biggest roars were for her barbs aimed at Democratic presidential nominee Obama.
“Victory in Iraq is finally in sight; he wants to forfeit,” she said of Obama. “Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America; he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.”
To the delight of the delegates, McCain strolled onto the convention stage after the speech and hugged his running mate.
“Don’t you think we made the right choice” for vice president? he said as his delegates roared their approval. It was an unspoken reference to the convention-week controversy that has greeted her, including the disclosure that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter was pregnant.
The packed convention hall exploded in cheers as McCain stood with Palin and her family — including mother-to-be Bristol and the father, 18-year-old Levi Johnston.
If McCain and his campaign’s high command had any doubt about Palin’s ability at the convention podium, they needn’t have. With her experience as a sportscaster and time spent in the governor’s office, her timing was flawless, her appeal to the crowd obvious.
“Our family has the same ups and downs as any other, the same challenges and the same joys,” she said as the audience signaled its understanding.
She traced her career from the local PTA to the governor’s office, casting herself as a maverick in the McCain mold, and seemed to delight in poking fun at her critics and her ticketmate’s political rivals.
Since taking office as governor, she said she had taken on the oil industry, brought the state budget into surplus and vetoed nearly half a billion dollars in wasteful spending.
“I thought we could muddle through without the governor’s personal chef — although I’ve got to admit that sometimes my kids sure miss her.”
Not surprisingly, her best-received lines were pointed toward at Obama.
“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities,” she said, a reference to Obama’s stint as a community organizer.
“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,” she said.
That was a reference to Obama’s springtime observation about some frustrated working-class Americans.
By contrast, she said of McCain: “Take the maverick out of the Senate. Put him in the White House.
“He’s a man who’s there to serve his country, and not just his party.”
“In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers,” she said in another cutting reference to Obama’s campaign theme. “And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.”
A parade of party luminaries preceded Palin to the convention podium, and Republicans packing the hall cheered every attack on Obama.
“He’s never run a city, never run a state, never run a business, never run a military unit. He’s never had to lead people in crisis,” said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani of McCain’s rival.
“This is not a personal attack … it’s a statement of fact — Barack Obama has never led anything. Nothing. Nada.”
Palin also jabbed at the news media, which have raised convention week questions about her background and her family.
“Here’s little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion — I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.”
The campaign depicted Palin’s critics as out to destroy the first female running mate in party history.
While she readied the speech of her career, McCain’s top strategist, Steve Schmidt, complained about a “faux media scandal,” generated, he said, by “the old boys’ network that has come to dominate the news establishment.”
Not everyone was quite on message, though.
“I think that Gov. Palin and Sen. Obama do not have extensive experience in government,” Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters. He said she has potential, and judged Obama a “political phenomenon, no doubt about it.”
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