Reaction | Comment | Video - in her own words

John McCain electrified the Republican Party and presidential race today by choosing a young, conservative and little-known governor of Alaska as his vice-presidential running-mate.

The surprise choice of Sarah Palin, 44, a fiscal and social conservative, mother of five, avid hunter and a first-term governor, thrilled Mr McCain’s Republican base and in a stroke virtually wiped out coverage of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. But it also triggered immediate worries over her inexperience.

Mrs Palin was given a raucous reception at a rally in Ohio during a poised and forceful speech in which she displayed clear signs of grit, a muscular, family-oriented conservatism, while also reaching out to the disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton.

“I would be honoured to serve next to the next president of the United States,” Mrs Palin declared, with four of her five children behind her.

“I know it will demand the best that I have to give, and I promise nothing less.”

Mrs Palin, who described herself as an “average hockey mum” – a clear bid for America’s swing-vote suburban mothers and disaffected Hillary Clinton Democrats – said her eldest son, Track, will be deployed with the US Army to Iraq on September 11. He was named after his mother's passion for running.

“As a mother of one of those troops, John McCain is the kind of man I want as our commander-in-chief,” she said.

Mrs Palin’s selection as only the second woman to be named on a major presidential ticket – after the Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 – was also a big political gamble by Mr McCain.

Just two years ago she was the mayor of the Alaskan city of Wasilla and will face in her one vice-presidential debate the seasoned foreign policy veteran Joe Biden.

She heaped praise on Ms Ferraro, and Mrs Clinton, declaring to the biggest cheers of her speech: “We can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all!”

With Mr McCain turning 72 today, and having suffered two bouts of skin cancer, Mr Obama’s campaign wasted no time in raising the question of his age and Mrs Palin’s lack of experience.

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