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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claimed her
historic spot on the Republican ticket Wednesday night, uncorking a
smiling, sarcastic attack on Barack Obama and winning cheers of
acceptance and approval after a tumult-filled first week on the
national stage.


      She vowed to help presidential nominee 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, and then the
delegates went about the business of formally awarding the
nomination he had sought for nearly a decade. 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 woman vice
presidential candidate in party history, she spoke to uncounted
millions of viewers at home in 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 unexpectedly
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.


      She had top billing at the convention on a night delegates also
lined up for a noisy roll call of the states to deliver their
presidential nomination to McCain.


      Palin drew cheers from the moment she stepped onto the
convention stage, hundreds of camera flashes reflecting off her
glasses.


      If McCain and his campaign's high command had any doubt about
her ability at the convention podium, they needn't have. With her
youthful 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.


      In her solo debut on the national stage, 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 one-half 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 barbs 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."


      McCain arrived in the Republican National Convention city
earlier in the day to accept the prize of a political lifetime.
Instantly, defended his choice of a running mate, saying she was
ready to serve as commander in chief after less than two years as
governor of Alaska.


      "Oh, absolutely," he said in an ABC interview.


      "Having been the governor of our largest state, the commander
of their National Guard, she was once in charge of their natural
resources assets actually, until she found out there was corruption
and she quit. ..."


      McCain's remarks dovetailed with an effort by his campaign to
depict 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."


      Little is known nationally of her views, although a video
surfaced during the day of a speech she made at her church in June
in which she said U.S. troops had been sent to Iraq "on a task
that is from God."


      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 of Pennsylvania told
reporters. He said she has potential, and judged Obama a
"political phenomenon, no doubt about it."


      Whatever Palin's impact on the race, McCain's story was among
the most arresting in recent presidential politics.


      The son and grandson of admirals, he had a rebellious youth by
his own account, running up a healthy ledger of demerits at the
Naval Academy. Shot down over Vietnam, he was held and tortured for
more than five years before his release. Along the way, he turned
down an offer of early freedom from captors eager for a propaganda
boost.


      Elected to Congress in 1982, he moved to the Senate in 1986 as a
Reagan Republican. Soon singed by the "Keating Five" scandal,
involving the savings and loan industry, he shifted course.


      He began carving out a maverick's role, championing legislation
to reduce the influence of money in politics and fighting wasteful
government spending.


      Increasingly over the years, he parted company with fellow
Republicans on issues as diverse as tobacco, health care,
immigration, judicial nominees, a commission to investigate the
Sept. 11 terror attacks, the use of torture in interrogations and
more.


      He first ran for president in 2000, but lost the GOP nomination
to George Bush in a bitter struggle.


      As the early front-runner eight years later, he watched
helplessly as anger with the Iraq war drained him of the support of
independents while conservatives deserted because of legislation
giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.


      Out of money - but not hope - he pared back his campaign and
persevered. When Huckabee defeated Romney in the leadoff Iowa
caucuses, it opened the door for McCain to win the New Hampshire
primary five days later.


      He did, and despite a chronic shortage of funds, methodically
dispatched his rivals, one by one, before clinching the nomination
with a series of big-state Super Tuesday wins on Feb. 5.


      Never a favorite of conservatives, he worked slowly to draw them
to his side, and his selection of Palin was a surprising stroke.


      Social conservatives greeted her pick enthusiastically - support
that coalesced in the ensuing days as her daughter's pregnancy
became known.


      While McCain himself appeals to independents, strategists said
they hoped Palin's presence on the ticket would gain a second look
from conservative Democrats who sided with New York Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton during her failed candidacy earlier in the year.

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Claiming her historic spot on the
Republican ticket, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin mocked
Barack Obama's experience and promise of change Wednesday night and
pledged to help John McCain upend the Washington establishment.

Palin mocks Obama; McCain claims nomination

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