St Paul, Minnesota - Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, running
mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, will introduce
herself to US voters in a primetime address on Wednesday night that
paints an image of her as a reform-minded Washington outsider.
Palin will forcefully answer the concerns about whether she has
the experience necessary for the job after two years as governor of
the sparsely-populated state and will take special aim at the media,
according to prepared remarks released in advance.
'I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment,' Palin
will say, according to the excerpts.
'But heres a little news flash for all those reporters and
commentators: Im not going to Washington to seek their good opinion
- Im going to Washington to serve the people of this country.'
Before Palin's speech, 2,380 national convention delegates will
formally nominate McCain and Palin as the centre-right Republican
Party's presidential ticket.
Convention organizers said Wednesday's schedule, revised after
Monday's programme was scuttled out of respect for victims of
Hurricane Gustav, would emphasize issues of reform and prosperity.
McCain, 72, a US senator from Arizona, will deliver his acceptance
speech on Thursday night.
Palin, 44, was little-known outside her remote home state before
being introduced Friday as McCain's unexpected choice for the vice
presidential slot.
She was the mayor of a small Alaska town before her election as
governor in 2006 on a reformist agenda. Palin's choice has set off a
debate about her relative inexperience, and raised comparisons to
both four-year US Senator Barack Obama, the opposition Democratic
Party's presidential nominee, and to McCain, a former Vietnam War
prisoner of war with 26 years in the Senate.
Palin will argue that Obama's message of change could not compare
to McCain's own record in the legislature.
'In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote
their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use
their careers to promote change,' she said in the prepared remarks.
Palin becomes only the second woman on a US major-party national
ticket. McCain's selection of Palin was seen as an overture to
disgruntled supporters of former first lady Hillary Clinton, who
narrowly lost the Democratic nomination to Obama and was passed over
as his running mate.
Obama chose Delaware Senator Joe Biden for the vice presidential
slot before the Democratic National Convention last week in Denver,
Colorado.
McCain, long considered a maverick within his own party, seems to
have solidified his support among the conservative Republican base
with the choice of Palin.
Texas delegate Tammi Sturm supported former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney, a favourite of conservatives early in the Republican
primaries, before switching to McCain when Romney quit the race in
the primary election.
'I think she is wonderful, a wonderful choice, just a very strong
female leader,' Sturm said of Palin.
The mother of five, including a boy born this spring with the
genetic abnormality Down syndrome, has a strong track record of
opposing abortion, making her immediately popular with the pro-life
Republican base.
But her policies on reproductive issues, including opposition to
sex education in public schools, have been in high focus since
Monday, when Palin and her husband announced that one of their
daughters, Bristol, 17, was pregnant and planning to marry the
teenage father of the unborn child.
Although the Palins asked for privacy from the media, Bristol and
her fiance, Levi Johnston, were among the Palin family members
welcoming McCain on Wednesday at Minneapolis-St Paul Airport.
Palin will be introduced Wednesday night by Hawaii Governor Linda
Lingle, a Republican leading a heavily Democratic state. Hawaii,
Obama's birthplace, shares Alaska's separation from the other 48 or
'continental' United States.
Other speakers Wednesday are to include three of the Republican
presidential hopefuls defeated by McCain earlier this year: former
New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Romney and former Arkansas
governor Mike Huckabee.
Giuliani, who ran New York during the September 11, 2001, attacks,
will frame the role of the presidency as 'an important job that
involves the safety and security of your family,' in arguing that
McCain is best prepared to take on that role, according to excerpts.
Romney, who made a fortune as a venture-capital investor before
entering politics, is to say that Democrats 'would replace
opportunity with dependency on government largesse. They would grow
government and raise taxes. ... Dependency is death to initiative,
risk-taking and opportunity.'
Former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina, a top McCain economic
advisor, and former Ebay executive Meg Whitman were also speaking on
a night when issues such as the economy, trade, health care, energy
and the environment are expected to receive heavy emphasis.
USA
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