Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made a solid and mistake-free debut as John McCain's choice for a running mate. She talked a lot about her record in local and state government, and about her family. She cast herself as a maverick and a reformer, very much like McCain. She heaped praised on the man who picked her.

And in case there was any doubt about why she was picked, she made a direct appeal to Democratic women, saluting Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, "who showed such determination and grace in her presidential campaign." The crowd booed. She repeated Clinton's phrase about having placed 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling by getting 18 million votes in the Democratic primaries and added: "We can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."

McCain, of course, introduced her and praised her executive experience, her fighting spirit, her record of reform and integrity. He said she was "exactly who this country needs." But he did not say the kind of thing that presidential candidates usually say at such a moment -- that his prime consideration was to pick someone fully qualified to be president. He'll certainly be asked to make such a statement as time goes on, and he probably will do so. On Day One, though, with Palin's credentials for the job an obvious question, he didn't say the words

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Talk about rolling the dice. In picking Sarah Palin to be his would-be veep, John McCain is making a breathtaking gamble.

The political calculation is obvious. The intent is to appeal to women, including those who are disgruntled that Hillary Rodham Clinton is not on the Democratic ticket, either in the first or second slot; polls taken before the Democratic convention showed that Obama had nailed down the support of little more than half of Clinton primary voters. The idea is to shake up the race, to cause those voters and others to take a second look at the Republican ticket. Palin also had solid conservative credentials -- anti-abortion, pro-gun -- that should make the conservative base happy. She's an attractive figure and a polished communicator.

But to my mind, the best case the Republicans had going against Barack Obama was the allegation that he is not ready to be president, not after less than four years in the U.S. Senate. Picking Palin, who has been governor of a low-population state for only 20 months, undercuts that argument big-time. How she'll do in her debate with Joe Biden is another question.

Presidential candidates always say that the main qualification for a running mate is that he or she needs to be someone who could take over as chief executive should something happen to the president. That seems particularly relevant today, on McCain's 72nd birthday. It's hard to argue that the 44-year-old former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska , population 5,469, meets that test, at least not in the traditional way. 

On Thursday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a finalist in the Republican veep derby, held a news conference in Denver as part of the GOP's "notready08" offensive against Obama. Here's what he said: "When you look at a candidate, you should ask two questions: What have you done, and what have you run? And when I at those two questions [for Obama], the answers are 'not much' and 'nothing.'" In Palin's case, the answers might well be 'not much' and 'not much.' Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was on CNN this morning saying, "She's not that well known. Maybe that's a good thing."

In the press release announcing the choice, the McCain campaign says: "Gov. Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president." It also notes as governor she has been head of Alaska 's National Guard.

One thing this selection will do once and for all is to destroy the idea that a vice president's home state has any relevance whatsoever. After eights of a veep from Wyoming, the nation seems destined to have one from Alaska or Delaware . Each of those three states has three electoral votes, the constitutional minimum.

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The Republican attack equating Sen. Barack Obama with troubled songbird Britney Spears and gazillionaire airhead Paris Hilton has seemed kind of silly, though the party's strategists did hit on a certain truth when they came up with the "biggest celebrity in the world" line.

Having covered Obama's presidential campaign over the months, I have sometimes noticed that there have always been hints of cultish adulation among some of his followers, and he has a penchant for snickering at his own lines and for motiviational-speaker-on-steriods gimmickry. "Yes we can!" The topper? Declaring himself a "citizen of the world" before 250,000 in Berlin over the summer.

Now, it's easy to quibble with any politician, and that's what Obama is - a very gifted one. And really, there's nothing wrong with him being great at his job, inspiring people, and getting so many millions interested in politics.

I just wonder if there was some congitive dissonance between his words and the setting last night at Obamapalooza in Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium.

First, Obama finally found a devastating argument to counter the Republican meme that he is just a celeb. He mentioned his grandmother, working up from the secretarial pool and up to middle management at a bank at a time when the ceiling for women was iron, not glass. He mentioned his grandfather, who fought for this nation in WWII and went to college on the GI bill. And how they poured everything they had into making life better for him.

"I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine," Obama said. "These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me."

It was an effective way to say, I'm a normal guy. But did the stagecraft around him undercut the message? The 84,000 rapturous fans in a festival atmosphere, the neoclassical temple-like stage, the raised lectern stand, the 450 pulsing spotlights, the superstar musical acts, the fireworks overhead -- certainly seemed calculated to create a rock-star effect, to dazzle the audience inside and at home. And they closed Interstate 25 through Denver. The New York Thruway is closed, man.

-- Thomas Fitzgerald

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I have to admit it; I was a bit skeptical upon arrival at Invesco Field on Thursday afternoon for Barack Obama's big night. The stage really did look like a Greek temple. It didn't seem like the stands would ever fill up. And the event started off like a rock concert with a few political speeches thrown in.

Then it started to get dark. The empty seats disappeared. Suddenly, about 80,000 people, or however many it was, were in place, having stood in security lines for hours just to hear a political speech. (A political writer can't help but like it when people are that interested in politics.) The big columns on either end of the stage now appeared to be nothing more than slightly overdone frames of giant video screens. Then, the star of the show arrived.

It was not Obama's most stirring effort, and it was not intended to be. He was trying to talk nuts and bolts, not political philosophy, to show that he is a politician of substance, not just a guy who can deliver a great speech. Whether he succeeded is for the voters to decide. But as political stagecraft goes, this was something special. And it didn't rain. It's hard to imagine what would have happened if it had.

In the end, it didn't matter that Sheryl Crow or Stevie Wonder had sung, or that Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson had recited the pledge of allegiance, or that there were fireworks and that much-discussed set. What mattered were the candidate, the words, and the crowd, which is what political campaigns have always been about.

It was an memorable night. We won't know whether it was an important one until Nov. 4.

Hey, Barack Obama can throw a punch. Make it 21 punches - one for each of the times he referred by name to Republican John McCain during his speech Thursday accepting the Democratic nomination for president.

Nervous Democrats were worried their candidate was going to turn out to be Obamabi, and they wanted to see him take on McCain and the Republicans with a forceful critique, to make his call for "change" seem more muscular.

Taking on what polls show is McCain's biggest strength, national security, Obama said that his GOP opponent was wrong on every foreign policy question of the day - in believing, for instance, that Iraq was an important offensive to launch in the war on Islamic terror, and not understanding the significance of Afghanistan.

"When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights," Obama said. "You know, John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives."

Zounds. But more important than the specific zingers on gaffes like McCain's statement in a forum that the "rich" make $5 million or more a year - meaning that a $4-million-a-year person is just middle class - was the overall theme:

McCain, Obama said, "doesn't get it." When it comes to foreign policy, he is "grasping at the ideas of the past."

In other words, the dude is old. Really old.

(McCain turns 72 today.)

 

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We have arrived at Invesco Field at Mile High. And quite a sight it is.

The set, presumably, was meant to look like a monumental, Washington-style federal government building. And it does in the middle, where all the American flags are. But on either end, there are these two larger structures, each with two grand columns. Which gives the thing a feel of a Greek temple, as some Republicans and others have said.

What matters, of course, is not how it looks now, in the middle of the afternoon, but how it looks at 8 p.m. local time, when Obama will take the stage and we'll be under the lights. And if the speech is a success, the set presumably won't make much of a difference.

A story on politico.com quotes an unnamed Democratic official as saying he thinks the Obama never would have done this mass, outdoor event -- or commissioned such a backdrop -- if they'd known how the Republicans would use his mass event in Berlin against him. This does have something of the same look.

The structure sits on the field, up against the east stands. It juts out into the middle of the field where the 50-yard-line ought to be. So Obama will look like he's out there on an island, just he and his teleprompter, with the delegates arrayed around him on the stadium floor.

We're in the football press box, down near the north goal line, with a good viewing angle for the spectacle. People have been lining up outside for several hours already, and they're just starting to trickle into the stands. It's a hot, sunny afternoon, and they're all going to be quite roasted by tonight. Rain is not in the forecast.

On Friday morning, Tim Pawlenty may be standing at John McCain's side in Dayton, Ohio, getting named the Republicans vice-presidential candidate. On Thursday, though, he was here in Denver, engaging in some preemptive spin of Barack Obama's presidential acceptance speech.

Basically the pitch was this: The Obama show tonight will be full of glitz, glamor and spectacle. The man himself is a gifted orator. But voters shouldn't get all wrapped up in the showmanship. Pawlenty even talked about the set on the floor of Invesco Field, which the Republicans and some others have likened to a Greek Temple. (I haven't seen it yet. I'll blog again later when I get over there.) This, he said, "is symbolic or iconic or methaphoric" for the fact that the Obama campaign knows how to mount an impressive production "but behind it, there's not much there."

Arizona Sen. John Kyl, who stood with Pawlenty yesterday, put it this way: "When the stadium is empty and all the speeches are finally done, Barack Obama still will not be ready to be president."

"Not ready" has been the theme of the Republican response efforts in Denver this week. It will be fascinating to see how the Democrats respond to the Republicans in St. Paul next week.

 

Republicans are already mocking the stage set of tonight's Invesco Field coronation. It looks like the Parthenon, home to the Greek gods atop Mount Olympus, and the opposition spinners are calling it the "Temple of Obama." They even sent around a memo to the media on the proper way to wrap a toga that showed the different styles of the garments for different classes and occasions, a kind of "what not to wear" for the Classical set.

Obama will give his acceptance speech before up to 80,000 worshipful fans, following performances by actual rock stars and fireworks, according to reports. But is all this wise, some Democrats are asking, considering that the Republican counter-narrative for Obama is that he is a narcissistic celebrity with little substance - and a man who may have a dangerous messiah complex. There has been plenty of snickering here in Denver through the week: Will Obama be lowered onto stage from a helicopter? Will he rise from the ground? Maybe they'll flood the football field and he'll walk across it to the stage. And these jokes are coming from people who support Obama.

"We already know he is a rock star, we already know he can bring 85,000 people together in a stadium. He has done it multiple times. He needs to talk to people who haven't made up their minds yet," Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen said, according to The Politico website.

Weigh in. Be the pundit. What do you think?