McCain's bet on Palin sets up a 'wild ride' in fall campaign
ST. PAUL -- Call it McCain's Gamble.
The Republican presidential candidate is pulling bigger crowds and a gusher of cash to his campaign since his unexpected pick Friday of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
But questions about how rigorously John McCain vetted Palin and fresh scrutiny of the governor's record are fueling a larger debate about McCain's shoot-from-the-hip style and Palin's qualifications, in a crisis, to be president.
Can the first-term governor of a state with more caribou than people rescue the GOP in a tough election year?
Palin has the potential to shake up a race in which the field is tilted in the Democrats' favor by economic angst and a desire for change — or to be a disastrous distraction that makes McCain's course even steeper. The nine weeks from now until Election Day will determine whether she is "an enormous asset and a game-changer or she turns out to be a liability," says former House speaker Newt Gingrich.
"It's going to be a wild ride," he says.
For many Americans, Palin's speech tonight will be their first look at her. Written by former White House speechwriter Matt Scully, it will combine autobiography and policy.
"She's going to talk to the delegates about the future of this country, about how to reform broken institutions of government," says McCain strategist Steve Schmidt. "People will hear about her reform-and-change message" and about energy and its links to national security.
"She'll also communicate directly to the American people who she is," Schmidt says.
Her reception in the convention hall is sure to be positive, given the enthusiastic reaction she's received from delegates and other Republican activists so far. The McCain campaign raised $7 million on Friday, the day Palin made her debut as running mate — its largest daily haul of the campaign. In rallies since in Ohio and Pennsylvania, McCain and Palin drew larger and more enthusiastic crowds than McCain usually draws alone.
However, it's clear that the GOP has a long way to go in selling Palin as a candidate to everyone else.
At a discussion Sunday with undecided voters from Minnesota, hosted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, not one of the 25 participants thought Palin is currently qualified to be president. In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday, 51% said they had never heard of her. Six of 10 said either she wasn't qualified to be president or they didn't know enough about her to have an opinion.
The first four days of her candidacy have brought a series of unwelcome disclosures, personal and political: Her unmarried teenaged daughter's pregnancy, a two-decade-old arrest of her husband on a drunken-driving charge and the hiring of an attorney to represent her in an investigation into the firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner. She has a reputation for attacking wasteful spending, but as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she retained a Washington lobbyist to seek $25 million in federal earmarks. She also initially supported $400 million in federal funding for Alaska's infamous "bridge to nowhere."
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