Claiming her historic spot on the Republican ticket, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin uncorked a slashing attack on Barack Obama Wednesday night and vowed to help John McCain bring real change to Washington.
"Victory in Iraq is finally in sight; he wants to forfeit," she said of the Democratic presidential nominee.
"Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America; he's worried that someone won't read them their rights.
"Government is too big; he wants to grow it."
A packed Republican convention hall roared at every line delivered by the 44-year-old Alaska governor, the first woman ever named to a Republican national ticket.
The Alaska governor 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. At 72, the Arizona senator is the oldest first-time nominee in history, collecting his party's top prize after pursuing it for the better part of a decade.
After days of convention-week controversy, much of it surrounding her 17-year-old, unmarried pregnant daughter, Palin drew cheers from the moment she stepped onto the convention stage, hundreds of camera flashes reflecting off her glasses.
"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."
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.
