Republican strategists caught attacking McCain's choice of running mate | Palin's son heads for warzone | Obama support hits 50% | Punters fail to take a shine to Palin | Blog: what the latest polls say | Blog: the trade in fake Palin pictures

Sarah Palin tonight strides out on the national stage to seize the spotlight from a succession of ageing white men at a Republican convention that has been smitten by John McCain’s fresh-faced, feisty, female and — above all — deeply right-wing running-mate.

The 44-year-old Governor of Alaska, virtually unheard of outside the frontiers of her wild and remote state until last Friday, has smashed her way into the American public’s consciousness.

As the first woman ever to appear on a Republican presidential ticket, she was always going the object of wonder and fascination. But in the past week Mrs Palin's palpably thin political record has under the most intense scrutiny, while rumours and revelations rain down about her pregant teenage daughter or the birth earlier this year of Trig, her own Down’s syndrome baby.

She had spent two days huddled in St Paul's Hilton hotel with the cream of Mr McCain’s team drafting tonight's address, taking a crash course on policy and preparing for her prime time debut. But at lunchtime, Mrs Palin emerged with her family to greet Mr McCain on the airport tarmac as he arrived in St Paul.

Her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, who has suffered most from the glare of publicity, received two sympathetic hugs from the Republican nominee. There was also a kiss on the head for Trig, then a handshake for Levi Johnstone - a self-described "f***in redneck" - Bristol's soon-to-be husband and the father of her unborn child.

An hour later, two senior Republicans were caught by an open MSNBC microphone ridiculing the choice of Mrs Palin as vice-presidential nominee. Mike Murphy, an ex-adviser to Mr McCain, was heard saying: "It's not going to work!" Peggy Noonan, a former White House speechwriter, replied: “It’s over...They went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives. Every time Republicans do that, they blow it.”

But many conservatives, exhausted by eight years of President Bush and suspicious of Mr McCain’s commitment to their cause, appear captivated by the story of this moose-hunting, snowmobile-riding mother of five. They sense that Mrs Palin — an evangelical who opposes abortion and believes Creationism should be taught in schools — is one of their own.

Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Church, said: “It was as if the whole Republican convention had started drinking Red Bull.” And the McCain campaign has embarked on an aggressive counter-attack against a favourite target of the conservative movement — liberal bias in the media. Chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, accused it of being “on a mission to destroy” Mrs Palin, saying some reporters were even demanding Mrs Palin take a DNA test to prove she is the mother of Trig.

The publicity is propelling issues such as abortion and marriage, which dominated the “culture wars” in US politics for a generation, back towards the top of the party's agenda. And Mrs Palin herself is energising the convention in a way that the men in their sixties, speaking in St Paul on Tuesday night, could not.

Mr Bush addressed delegates by satellite link, adding real distance to that which Mr McCain is metaphorically seeking to place between himself and a tainted White House. Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee, delivered a low-key speech about the need for bipartisanship and putting “country first”.

He is thought to have been Mr McCain’s initial choice for running-mate and it is a sign of how far the script has been rewritten in the past week that this consummate Capitol Hill insider felt obliged to include lines about how the woman who pipped him for the post would “shake up Washington”.

The most thunderous applause was for Fred Thompson, who had largely slumbered through his presidential campaign earlier this year, as he defended Mrs Palin's as a "breath of fresh air" whose "small town values are not good enough for those folks attacking her and her family.”

Mrs Palin, in her speech, is expected to claim the mantle of a reformer prepared to take on the political Establishment in Washington and her party on issues such as energy policy, while also filling some of the most glaring gaps in her biography.

The pumped-up audience of about 20,000 people at a packed-out Xcel Energy Arena tonight will be a sharp contrast to Alaskan politics where the biggest venue holds only 8,000. Mr Murphy and Ms Noonan the not only party elders expressing reservations about whether, with Mr McCain trailing Barack Obama by an average of 5.8 per cent in the polls, the raw and ragged-edged Mrs Palin can reach beyond the Republican base to swing voters watching on TV. But others are licking their lips at the prospect of real Republican red meat. “It’s going to be a wild ride,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House of Representatives Speaker.

Times Recommends

• UN may halt 400-year-old 'freedom of the seas'
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone
• Gas deal on hold, but Ukraine may pay in the end