John McCain has a new attack dog. Her name is Sarah Palin, and she bites hard.
Sarah Palin's mocking critique of Barack Obama and the Washington elite charged up Republicans looking for signs of hope that she and McCain can win the White House on Nov. 4.
Now it is McCain's turn. The Arizona senator, who was nominated for president after Palin spoke, will deliver a televised address on Thursday night accepting that nomination.
Palin, 44, McCain's vice presidential running mate, drew shouts of "Sarah, Sarah" on Wednesday in her national political debut, unleashing red-meat rhetoric against Obama that had been largely lacking from this four-day event.
She cheerfully shot down criticism from Democrats that her experience as governor and ex-mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, did not match Obama's as leader of a large presidential campaign"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," she said in a swipe at Obama's own early career in Chicago.
Democrats argue that McCain, by picking the relatively untested and unknown Palin, had ceded his argument that Obama was too inexperienced to be president.
But McCain said he was satisfied she had the right experience and "over time people will compare her accomplishments with that of Senator Obama and his are very meager."
"She is experienced, she's talented and she knows how to lead," McCain told ABC's "Good Morning America." "This is what Americans want. They don't want somebody who is, frankly, necessarily gone to Harvard or an Ivy League school."
She resurrected Obama's comment from his primary battle with Democrat Hillary Clinton that people in small towns are bitter and cling to guns and religion.
"I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening," she said...
Editorial: I believe a new star was born and this is only the beginning - Sarah Palin seems to be a natural leader!. You can't learn to be a leader in a classroom not even in an Ivy League school. (Will Sarah Palin be the first U.S. Female President?)