Anchorage Daily News

The second coming of Ronald Reagan. Talk shows are ablaze with this comparison, and Time magazine's post-speech story sees the comparison as well.

You practically expected Sarah Palin to wear a cape when she landed center stage Wednesday night. She was like a one-woman Fantastic Four, her faults invisible to the faithful, her strengths deployed to close a 20-point white-voter gender gap in key swing states, her blazing novelty enough to ignite the hall and her biography so elastic that everyone from the gun owners to the PTA moms to the Pentecostals to the first timers felt warm in the embrace. "Sa-rah! Sa-rah!" the delegates roared, and the hall that felt like a tomb on Monday might as well have seen the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, so ecstatic was the crowd.

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Before a convention of friends, she was a "GOP natural." Newsweek's assessment of Gov. Sarah Palin's convention address captures what many are saying: She carried the day.

To say she is poised doesn't do her justice. Thrown onto the national stage with little time to prepare, she looked more at home up there than almost any of the elders who preceded her to a microphone in either party's convention. And she's not keeping things safe and sedate. Like a certain obscure state senator four years ago, she has the knack that all really gifted performers have, of working the room on the fly, of drawing people to her.

She is - again, like Obama - some peculiar mix of traditional American success story and envelope-busting freak show. At 44, she's running a state. But one of her children is, oh, let's skip the biography; you watched the speech too. How will the nation deal with somebody like this, a politician who addresses the multitudes while her 6-year-old licks her palm to smooth the hair of the special-needs 4-month-old right offstage? Just when you thought this election might start making sense, the country finds itself back in the uncharted part of the map where the illustrations of dragons go.

A little stumble on global oil security had the look of the trapeze artist sneaking a peek at the ground.

But with Palin there's an edge that sounds new. While Obama is crafting a post-boomer politics by using his literary gift, life story and golden tongue to bring people together, Palin, on the evidence presented so far, moves beyond boomer categories with her own original story, her own preternatural poise and a method of political attack that is far snarkier and more up-to-the-minute than any you expect to hear coming from the mouth of someone who might very soon be the most powerful person on the planet. "What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?" she asked of Obama. (For what it's worth, this is the exact angle that snark god Jon Stewart and his correspondents have been taking while mocking him lately.)

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Feminists see Palin's rise as fantastic, or just plain wrong. Gloria Steinem, writing for the Los Angeles Times opinion section, was both pragmatic and skeptical. Her message to McCain: "It won't work."

This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom.

But some analysts, noting that critics ask whether Palin can handle a special-needs baby and the vice presidency, saw the question as holding her to a a double standard. The Kansas City Star Prime Buzz blog noted:

Palin defenders pointed out that Biden didn't face similar questions in 1972 when a car crash took the life of his wife and daughter and seriously injured his sons soon after he was elected to the Senate. "Not a single colleague, friend or competitor advised him to quit his newly won Senate seat to raise his two little surviving sons," wrote New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser.

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The foreign press falls under Palin's sway. It's not universal by any means, but the audience loves a good show, and the English-language press was wowed. Here are a few examples.

> This is Alaska's Margaret Thatcher (Times Online)

She spoke for 36 pugnacious, stiletto-heeled, in your face, Barack Obama is a limp-wristed cover boy minutes.

Having put to rest any doubts that she is a very tough lady not afraid of a fight, many males in the audience - when not giving her a standing ovation - were instinctively crossing their legs.

In Alaska, they say she kills off enemies (a central allegation in the ethics investigation of which she is currently the focus.) Tonight it was obvious that it would clearly not be a good idea to cross her.

> Attacks backfire on Palin (Telegraph)

Pregnant teenage daughter? There is not a hockey mom in America who does not empathise, with the private thought "There but for the grace of God ..." So her son-in-law-to-be was caught fishing for salmon out of season - that is pure Huckleberry Finn.

Some American women are beginning to recognize that the Democrats talk a good game about shattering glass ceilings - provided the beneficiary is a liberal feminist who has bitched her way to the top; but if an average American wife and mother presumes to come out from behind the white picket fence she will be put down with ruthless calculation.

> "George Bush in a skirt" (Toronto Star)

That quote is actually a comment under the story, which is a political timeline comparing what Barack Obama was doing at the same time as Sarah Palin, fodder for the discussion of who has the most experience to be vice president.

> Her foibles will only help her (Calgary Herald)

Despite the howls of outrage on the left, ordinary Americans will yawn at Palin's flaws because they do not want to see their leaders as idealized reflections of themselves. Possessed of an unshakable belief in their own self-worth, they want to see themselves in their leaders, inconsistencies and all. This is why, for example, Barack Obama's lofty education and perceived elitism are proving so troublesome. Lacking an obvious common touch, he does not mirror people or allow them to feel for him and like him the way Palin, with her numerous foibles, does.

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About the hair: up, down, then half-up, half-down. We'll get serious again in a minute, but the vice presidential candidate's hair got a thumb's down from Boston hairdressers, while an Alaska blogger, who disagrees with Palin's politics, unabashedly called her a looker.

> Let your hair down. (Boston Herald)

But must her hair suffer? With her long, straight, often pinned-up locks, Palin looks one humid day away from fronting a Kiss cover band.

"It's about 20 years out of date," said Boston stylist Mario Russo of the Alaska governor's 'do. "Which goes to show how off she might be on current events."

In fact, some argue Palin might be a little too long in the tooth for such tresses, sparking another squabble: to cut or not to cut after hitting 40. Yes, long hair evokes youth, but long hair after 40 can flirt with desperation.

> Gov. Betty makes the scene (Own the Sidewalk)

Well. Now we know where Sarah Palin has been for the past three days.

She's been locked in her hotel room getting totally beautiful.

Seriously. I don't even know what she said in her speech tonight because I was totally mesmerized by how completely gorgeous she was.

I've never been a big fan of the governor's look. She's always been a bit too big-haired for my taste. (Side note: I believe I may have made a remark at some point about "über-bangs.") But clearly, while the GOP had its speechwriters and policy experts hard at work getting her geared up, they also brought in a team of beauticians the likes of which has never been seen at the governor's mansion.

And while we're having fun, the comedian Lisa Novak's "Palin" saying yes to a "McCain" VP offer is on YouTube. (Rough language.)

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Who is Sarah Palin, really? The long-form biographies are starting to show up, with close and careful reviews of Palin's behavior as a mayor and as a governor. These reports document her green beginning and ways that Palin emerged as a politician over time. They explore the role of religion in her life and examine the results of some of her executive behavior. Some of the best examples:

> Focus turns to Palin's record (Wall Street Journal)

In the five days since Sen. John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, she has been embraced by the right and pilloried by the left as a staunch conservative on social and economic issues.

But a look at her record as mayor of the small town of Wasilla and as governor of Alaska shows a politician more flexible in her ideology as she has juggled the needs of governing.

Gov. Palin has supported abortion restrictions and floated the idea of pulling books she considered offensive from a local library. But she also drew the ire of the religious right by shelving calls for new abortion limits when she worried it would distract from her bipartisan deal to push through a new gas pipeline. She forced through property tax cuts but also raised taxes on oil companies. She has close relations with organized labor, backing union contracts on a state pipeline.

> Call of the Wild (Time magazine)

> Mayor Palin: A rough record (Time magazine)

Other pieces attempt a more straightforward look at her politics based on historical news accounts:

> Archives of Alaska papers reveal disturbing - and goofy - details from Palin's past (Editor & Publisher)

> Alaska's governor: a true-false guide (San Francisco Chronicle)

> 8 more shocking revelations about Sarah Palin (alternet.org)

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Palin's record on Native issues draws mixed reactions. Alaska Native blogger Alaska Real has been critical of Gov. Palin's disinterest in Alaska Native issues, and annoyed that she uses her husband's Native roots as some kind of a pass. She cites a recent story in Indian Country Today that notices Palin's addition to the ticket adds an "Indian dimension" to the presidential race.

Also drawing criticism, Palin opposed an initiative to stop development of the Pebble Mine adjacent to the Bristol Bay fishing grounds, which is a prime area for both commercial and subsistence salmon fishing.

''Her public position on that issue undoubtedly had an effect on the defeat of that initiative, an initiative supported by many of the region's Inupiat and Yup'ik Alaska Natives,'' Shepro said.

Palin also concerned some Indians in July when she abruptly fired Walt Monegan, the first Alaska Native public safety commissioner in the state. The governor said she wanted to take the Department of Public Safety in a different direction, but a Republican rival said Monegan was fired because he refused to take action against state trooper Mike Wooten, who was recently divorced from Palin's younger sister.

She also points to Reznetnews.org, and its story asking "What's Palin's record on Native issues?"

"The Alaska population is pretty excited," said Holly Miowak Stebing, a 20-year-oyear-old Inupiaq woman and Barack Obama supporter. "Within the Native population, it's pretty mixed."

She criticized Palin for undermining causes she sees as beneficial to Native Alaskans, such as the governor's opposition to a legislative proposition that would have stopped certain mining operations in the state from releasing toxic pollutants into water that would harm the health of humans or salmon. Stebing said salmon is important as a food and revenue source to Native Alaskans, but Palin opposed the measure, which was defeated Aug. 26 by more than 57 percent of Alaskan voters.

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Troopergate: Palin's emails to Monegan over Wooten. The Washington Post includes excerpts from Palin's cyber correspondence with Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan over the personnel status of Trooper Mike Wooten, her former brother-in-law.

"This trooper is still out on the street, in fact he's been promoted," said a Feb. 7, 2007, e-mail sent from Palin's personal Yahoo account and written to give Monegan permission to speak on a violent-crime bill before the state legislature.

"It was a joke, the whole year long 'investigation' of him," the e-mail said. "This is the same trooper who's out there today telling people the new administration is going to destroy the trooper organization, and that he'd 'never work for that b****', Palin'.)"

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The Alaska Independence Party and Sarah and Todd Palin. The New York Times reports that a party leader confirmed Sarah never actually joined the political break-way group, but her husband did belong for seven years. A columnist at the Los Angeles Times still has plenty of questions.

The McCain campaign denies that Palin ever joined the AIP. But while it is in dispute whether she attended its 1994 convention, she did visit the 2000 one and addressed AIP conventions in 2006 and 2008. Her husband, Todd, was a registered AIP member from 1995 to 2002, and the AIP leadership certainly considers her one of their own.

Video footage shows AIP Vice Chairman Dexter Clark describing Palin at the 2007 North American Secessionist Convention as an "AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town -- that was a nonpartisan job. But you get along to go along. She eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won't go into that." (No need to. The Alaska Legislature's ethics investigators are on the case.) Apparently with Palin in mind, Clark then went on to urge AIP members to "infiltrate" the major parties.

So what does Palin currently think of the AIP? Hard to know -- she's been keeping mum -- but this year she told AIP members: "I'm delighted to welcome you to the 2008 Alaska Independence Party Convention. ... Keep up the good work!"

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And finally:

> "She's like a moose on cabbage." (Times Online)

Meanwhile, at a table directly underneath one of the TVs, Lu Sackett, 70, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of a grizzly bear and a floppy hat decorated with flag pins waved his burger in appreciation when Palin laid into the Democrats' tax plans.

"She's like a moose going after a cabbage," he marvelled.

> Sarah Palin rises above the feeding frenzy (Boston Herald)

For while it pains us to credit left-wing film maker Michael Moore with a moment of clarity and wisdom, he did have this to say to his fellow travelers on his Web site:

"Knocking Bush for being a C student only endeared him to the nation of C students. Knock Palin for having kids, for having a kid who's having a baby, for anything that is part of her normalness - a normalness that looks very familiar to so many millions of Americans - well, you do this at your own peril."

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