McCain surprises with VP pick

Palin, first woman on a GOP ticket, is hailed as a reformer, but readiness at issue

DAYTON, Ohio - Senator John McCain stunned the political world yesterday by announcing that he had selected Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his running mate, hoping the first woman on a Republican ticket will draw disaffected Democrats and independents while countering Barack Obama's message of change.

In picking a little-known, 44-year-old, first term governor with scant foreign policy experience, McCain immediately faced questions about whether she would be qualified to occupy the Oval Office if something happened to McCain, who turned 72 yesterday.

But the Arizona senator said Palin is a reformer who is "exactly who I need - she's exactly who this country needs - to help me fight the same old Washington politics of me first and country second."

McCain renewed his claim to be the "original maverick" in American politics by passing over prospects with more experience and with far more time stumping for him, including former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who was the overwhelming favorite of Republican convention delegates. Aides said he made his decision based on his gut and not the polls.

McCain introduced Palin to thunderous applause from 15,000 supporters at Wright State University's arena, the biggest event of his campaign so far, the morning after more than 84,000 people in Denver and a TV audience of more than 38 million nationally watched Obama accept the Democratic presidential nomination.

Palin described herself as "just your average hockey mom in Alaska" when she embarked on a public career that began in 1992 on the local council of Wasilla, a town of about 6,500 near Anchorage, and culminated in her election in 2006 as Alaska's youngest and first female governor.

A mother of five, she appealed directly to the 18 million voters who supported Hillary Clinton over Obama during the Democratic primaries, asserting that her candidacy gives women another chance to make history.

"It turns out the women of America aren't finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all," Palin said.

The McCain campaign has incessantly attacked Obama, a 47-year-old first-term US senator, as "not ready to lead," but some political analysts said the choice of someone younger with less tenure in her current office undercut the experience argument. Her selection also contrasted markedly with Obama's pick a week ago of Senator Joe Biden, 65, who was elected to the US Senate at 29 and is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

The Obama campaign immediately cast the choice of Palin as a mistake by McCain and a boon for the Democratic ticket, asserting that "McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Obama, himself, later softened the reaction, telling reporters in Pennsylvania that he had called to congratulate Palin and calling her "a compelling person" whose selection was "one more indicator of this country moving forward."

The McCain campaign, in its statement announcing Palin as the choice, made only one reference to her national security credentials: her leadership, as governor, of Alaska's National Guard.

Introducing Palin, McCain focused instead on what he described as Palin's record as a tenacious fighter against "special interests and entrenched bureaucracies," "corruption and the failed policies of the past."

"She stands up for what's right and she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down," McCain said. "She's fought oil companies and party bosses and do-nothing bureaucrats and anyone who puts their interests before the people of whom she swore an oath to serve."

Palin also highlighted her reformist impulses. "I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things," she told the crowd. "A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built. Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons. And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good."

In addition to passing over Romney, McCain had considered Minnesota's governor, Tim Pawlenty, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

Republican strategists have said that all four of the men presented problems that caused McCain to reject them: Romney's attacks on McCain during the primaries could have been used against the ticket. Lieberman and Ridge favor abortion rights and were opposed by many Republicans.

Pawlenty, a close friend of McCain, also had a low national profile and didn't offer the history of Palin; she is the second woman on a major party presidential ticket, after Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

While saying he knew "very little" about Palin, former Senator David Durenberger of Minnesota, a close friend of both Pawlenty and McCain, said the choice fit the McCain mold. "John does what he does. This is John's shaping of the Republican Party or at least of the campaign."

McCain hopes the selection of Palin will limit any boost in support for Obama after four days of McCain-bashing at the Democratic National Convention this week.

In addition to trying to attract disaffected Clinton supporters, the McCain campaign hopes that Palin will also energize the Republican Party's base. She is popular with GOP conservatives because she is a deeply religious Christian, is a hunter who supports gun rights, and has a strong antiabortion record, underscored by her decision to give birth to five-month-old Trig, who has Down's syndrome. She learned of the condition when she was four months pregnant.

Another of her five children, son Track, enlisted in the Army last Sept. 11 and is headed to Iraq, she said.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said McCain made the pick because he "needs to roll the dice frequently to win, and this is a roll of the dice."

"Palin is a good chess move. She shakes up public perceptions of McCain and the GOP, she builds an audience for the convention, she makes the ticket historic like the Democrats' ticket, and she cuts into Obama's bounce."

Her selection probably won't make any difference in her own state.

Alaska is reliably Republican (President Bush won 61 percent of the vote in 2004 and 59 percent in 2000), and the state has only three electoral votes.

Palin, in introducing herself to a national audience, also emphasized her working-class roots. Her parents both worked in an elementary school. Palin described how she met her husband, Todd, in high school.

He is part Yup'ik Eskimo and works as a commercial fisherman and an oil field operator, while being a "proud member of the United Steel Workers union and he's a world champion snow machine racer," Palin said, referring to her husband's competition in the 1,900-mile Iron Dog competition.

Many in the audience at yesterday's rally were shocked at the selection of Palin.

Jean Rayner, 71, of Kentucky, said she heard of Palin but never imagined that McCain would pick her. "But I'm glad he did," Rayner said, calling it "a slap in the face at Hillary."

Tommy Priestly, a 23-year-old who rode on a bus from Columbus with other McCain supporters, described how word of Palin's selection spread after someone received a Blackberry message. Some people said they had never heard of Palin and others said they knew little about her.

"As we kind of figured out who she was, they were a little more hopeful, and once they heard her talk, they realized what a great pick it was," said Priestly, who said the pick shows McCain "is willing to cross lines that other people haven't crossed."

Romney's former spokesman, Kevin Madden, said the Palin pick was "definitely a surprise" because she is not well-known and because Alaska already is likely to vote Republican.

"But this has been a year where the conventional wisdom has been obliterated every time," Madden said.

"Who's to say that Sarah Palin is not the next victory for the unconventional over the predictable?"

Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com.