United States Republican presidential nominee John McCain has a new attack dog. Her name is Sarah Palin, and she bites hard.
Palin’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 will deliver a televised address on Thursday night accepting the Republican nomination for president.
Palin (44), Alaska’s governor and McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, drew shouts of ”Sarah, Sarah” on Wednesday in her national political debut, unleashing rhetoric against Obama that had been largely lacking from this four-day event.
She cheerfully shot down criticism from Obama that her experience as governor and ex-mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, did not match his own 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.
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.
‘Palin power’
”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”.
Experts said Palin 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.”
Palin came into her big week having to make an uncomfortable disclosure, that her unmarried daughter Bristol (17) was pregnant and planned to marry the high-school classmate who is the father, Levi Johnston (18).
The Palins took the issue head on with no big fuss. Both Bristol and Johnston appeared on stage with the rest of the family after her speech. Johnston had the word ”Bristol” tattooed on his ring finger.
”From the inside, no family ever seems typical. That’s how it is with us. Our family has the same ups and downs as any other … the same challenges and the same joys,” Palin said.
She dismissed the ”Washington elite” — those pundits and commentators who she said had questioned whether she should be on the ticket, and presented herself as a reformer who took on the establishment in her home state.
”While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor’s office that I didn’t believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay,” she said.
Republican defence
Other prominent Republican speakers defended Palin, only the second woman to be a vice-presidential nominee of a major political party.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani branded as sexism the questions of some commentators who wondered how Palin could be vice-president with five children, including an infant with Down syndrome.
”How dare they question whether Sarah Palin has enough time to be vice-president and spend enough time with her children. How dare they do that. When have they ever asked a man that question?” Giuliani said.
Republican strategist Vin Weber said, following her big introduction, Palin would have to submit to interviews and news conferences to demonstrate substantive knowledge of the issues.
”All the attention paid to her these last few days means the vice-presidential selection means more than it normally does,” Weber said.
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 behind Obama in public opinion polls by several percentage points and is facing Americans in the mood for change after nearly eight years under Republican President George Bush.
”He [McCain] needs to provide a compelling example of why he’s ready to be president and Barack Obama is not, and why the direction he wants to take America is good and why the direction Barack Obama wants to take America is bad,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. — Reuters