McCain's right gamble?

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John McCain spent the summer arguing that a 40-something candidate with four years in statewide office and no significant foreign policy experience was not ready to be president.

And then Friday he picked as his running mate a 40-something candidate with two years in statewide office and no foreign policy experience.

The surprise selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin proved quintessentially McCain -- daring, hazardous and defiantly off-message. He demonstrated he would not get boxed in by convention as he sought to put a woman next in line to the presidency for the first time. Yet in making such an unabashed bid for supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, he risked undercutting his central case against Sen. Barack Obama.

"Here's what I'm worried about," said Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist and former aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "McCain had to protect his reputation as an opponent of status-quo Washington. He had to pick someone with the shortest Washington résumé. He did that. He picked someone the right wing is going to be happy about. But it's a gamble.

"The question is, what does it do to the argument that Obama's not ready?"

The question is acute for McCain, who turned 72 on Friday and will be the oldest person to assume the presidency if he wins. His campaign now needs to convince the public that it can imagine in the Oval Office a candidate who has spent just two years as governor of a state with 670,000 people.

But 44-year-old Palin, pronounced PAY-lin, brings clear assets to the ticket. The "gun-packing, hockey-playing woman," as Republican strategist Karl Rove described Palin, instantly bolstered McCain's wobbly conservative base, which rejoiced over the selection of an anti-abortion evangelical Christian.

Palin's reputation as a reformer who took on her state party over corruption and wasteful spending could reinforce McCain's credentials.

Her personal narrative as a working mother raising five children, including an infant with Down syndrome, with a husband who belongs to a union, might prove attractive to working-class voters in battleground states who have been suspicious of Obama.

And her presence on the ticket will allow Republicans to argue that Obama would not be the only one to break barriers if elected.

"She's 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 declared Friday as the pair stood together for the first time at a boisterous rally in Dayton, Ohio, just days before the opening of the party's national convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Palin, the first Republican woman on a presidential ticket, promised, "I'm going to take our campaign to every part of our country and our message of reform to every voter of every background in every political party, or no party at all."

"Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties," added Palin, who has built her career in large measure by challenging fellow Republicans.

Ron Nehring, chairman of the California Republican Party, said McCain's choice is "a Washington outsider who will be an ally for him in shaking up the way things are done. This is someone with solid conservative credentials but solid credentials as a reformer. And it's clear after watching today's event, no one is going to push Sarah Palin around -- not Barack Obama and not Joe Biden," the Democratic vice presidential candidate.

In picking a running mate without deep experience but who would make history, McCain chose someone who in some ways resembles Obama. At the same time, by choosing Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate, Obama tapped a longtime denizen of Washington with even more time in the Senate than McCain. Just as it might be harder for McCain to attack his opponent over his level of experience, it might be tougher for Obama to paint his rival as a creature of the capital.

While Obama made a safe front-runner's choice and McCain made a bold underdog's decision, neither went for a running mate from a populous or contested state.

Palin has been a rising star on the right since she beat an incumbent governor in a Republican primary in 2006 and then a former Democratic governor in the general election. With an approval rating around 80 percent, she is among the most popular governors.

While Palin had been mentioned as a dark-horse candidate for the job, she never was described as being on McCain's short list, which included former presidential rival Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

Democratic strategists compared Palin's selection with those of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 or Dan Quayle in 1988, suggesting the decision reflected desperation by McCain.

"He feels a little like Walter Mondale," said Jim Jordan, a Democratic political consultant. "He's a respected Washington lifer who's run into political forces that are bigger than himself. And he's responded by making a decision that feels panicky."

But some Republicans distinguished Palin's résumé from Obama's by arguing Palin's executive experience as governor was more valuable than Obama's legislative history. The "not ready" argument against Obama, they suggested, will focus more on judgment than pure experience.

And they maintained Palin would get the better of Biden, predicting the veteran senator, known for his slashing attacks, would have a hard time not looking as though he was being condescending to a woman.

"In a way, McCain has set a trap on the experience argument," said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's presidential campaign in 1996, "because if they start picking on her on experience, it's going to backfire with women."