John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin board McCain's campaign airplane Sunday in Jackson, Miss., after a visit to the command center at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

2008 CANDIDATE PROFILES 2008 CANDIDATE PROFILES 2008 Republican nominee: Sen. John McCain of Arizona -- Six things to do before Nov. 4 John McCain on the campaign issues: Taxes | Iraq | Energy | Immigration | Health care | Education | Abortion | Gay civil rights 2008 Democratic nominee: Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois -- Six things to do before Nov. 4 Barack Obama on the campaign issues: Taxes | Iraq | Energy | Immigration | Health care | Education | Abortion | Gay civil rights Match up with a candidate: Our issues game lets you compare your views with those of Obama and McCain. CREATE A SCENARIO FOR 2008 CREATE A SCENARIO FOR 2008 USA TODAY's interactive electoral vote tracker lets you build election scenarios, share them with friends and study past election outcomes. PALIN BIOGRAPHY PALIN BIOGRAPHY Name: Sarah Heath Palin. Age: 44; born Feb. 11, 1964; Sandpoint, Idaho. Experience: Alaska governor since December 2006; unsuccessful run for Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 2002; chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2003-2004; served two terms as Wasilla mayor and two terms on city council. Education: Graduated University of Idaho, 1987, journalism. Family: Husband, Todd; five children. Business: Worked as sports reporter for two Anchorage television stations; owned with her husband a snowmobile, watercraft, ATV business from 1994-97. Husband is a North Slope oil field worker. Source: Associated Press. WHAT'S ON THE AIR IN 2008? WHAT'S ON THE AIR IN 2008? USA TODAY's campaign ad tracker lets you watch selected ads, learn more about them and then rate their accuracy and effectiveness. McCain's bet on Palin sets up a 'wild ride' in fall campaign ST. PAUL  Call it McCain's Gamble. The Republican presidential candidate is pulling bigger crowds and a gusher of cash to his campaign since his unexpected pick Friday of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. But questions about how rigorously John McCain vetted Palin and fresh scrutiny of the governor's record are fueling a larger debate about McCain's shoot-from-the-hip style and Palin's qualifications, in a crisis, to be president. ANALYSIS: Palin could grab blue-collar vote Can the first-term governor of a state with more caribou than people rescue the GOP in a tough election year? Palin has the potential to shake up a race in which the field is tilted in the Democrats' favor by economic angst and a desire for change — or to be a disastrous distraction that makes McCain's course even steeper. The nine weeks from now until Election Day will determine whether she is "an enormous asset and a game-changer or she turns out to be a liability," says former House speaker Newt Gingrich. "It's going to be a wild ride," he says. For many Americans, Palin's speech tonight will be their first look at her. Written by former White House speechwriter Matt Scully, it will combine autobiography and policy. "She's going to talk to the delegates about the future of this country, about how to reform broken institutions of government," says McCain strategist Steve Schmidt. "People will hear about her reform-and-change message" and about energy and its links to national security. "She'll also communicate directly to the American people who she is," Schmidt says. Her reception in the convention hall is sure to be positive, given the enthusiastic reaction she's received from delegates and other Republican activists so far. The McCain campaign raised $7 million on Friday, the day Palin made her debut as running mate — its largest daily haul of the campaign. In rallies since in Ohio and Pennsylvania, McCain and Palin drew larger and more enthusiastic crowds than McCain usually draws alone. However, it's clear that the GOP has a long way to go in selling Palin as a candidate to everyone else. At a discussion Sunday with undecided voters from Minnesota, hosted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, not one of the 25 participants thought Palin is currently qualified to be president. In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday, 51% said they had never heard of her. Six of 10 said either she wasn't qualified to be president or they didn't know enough about her to have an opinion. The first four days of her candidacy have brought a series of unwelcome disclosures, personal and political: Her unmarried teenaged daughter's pregnancy, a two-decade-old arrest of her husband on a drunken-driving charge and the hiring of an attorney to represent her in an investigation into the firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner. She has a reputation for attacking wasteful spending, but as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she retained a Washington lobbyist to seek $25 million in federal earmarks. She also initially supported $400 million in federal funding for Alaska's infamous "bridge to nowhere." When he announced his pick, she and McCain cited her opposition to the bridge project as evidence of her credentials as a reformer. McCain told reporters Tuesday as he toured a Philadelphia fire station that the vetting process had been "completely thorough." Even so, some Republicans are nervous. "I hope that there are no more surprises, that all the homework is done and that she is impressive," says David Frum, a former White House speechwriter for President Bush. "But the fear is, there's a lot of evidence that the homework was not done." Reinforcing McCain's 'brand' McCain is betting that Palin reinforces his "brand" as a reformer willing to take on established interests, including those in their own party. Palin was the mayor of Wasilla (population 9,780 in 2007) when she came to statewide attention because of her whistle-blowing on ethics violations by Republican officials. In 2006, she beat Gov. Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary — "a giant-killer," Democratic pollster Celinda Lake recalls — then won the general election. "People really thought she was a reformer and that was a big plus," says Lake, who was working against her election. "She is a very formidable campaigner, a very formidable debater, very appealing." Palin, 44 and the mother of five, has energy, poise, a down-to-earth manner and a compelling personal story: from the PTA to the statehouse. She hunts, fishes and rides snowmobiles, pursuits Gingrich says should appeal to blue-collar workers in key states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio. Her opposition to abortion rights — and her decision to carry to term her now 4½-month-old son, Trig, who has Down syndrome — has reassured some evangelicals who have been wary of McCain. "I have seen a complete turnaround of social conservatives toward the McCain campaign," says Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. The campaign also figures Palin's status as the second woman to be on a major party's national ticket could draw female voters, including some who backed Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. "I am delighted to see the historic nature of this," says Geraldine Ferraro, the former New York congresswoman who in 1984 was the first woman on a national ticket. "Barack Obama's candidacy is history. (Palin's) now is history. One of them is going to get to the door of the White House and pull down a sign that … says, 'Whites only' or 'Men only.' " But Ferraro doubts that will be enough to draw the votes of many women — including her own. "I'm a Democrat," she says. "I think women, like men, will vote for the top of the ticket." In USA TODAY polls, McCain's standing among women didn't budge with the pick of Palin. He was backed by 42% of women in a poll taken before the convention, another on the day of her announcement and a third taken Saturday and Sunday. Ferraro's example also underscores a potential downside of Palin's pick. At the 1984 Democratic convention, her nomination prompted an emotional celebration. Within weeks, she was enmeshed in a controversy over her husband's financial dealings that lasted through Election Day. Palin has not been a familiar figure on the national stage — or even to McCain. McCain met her for the first time in February at a National Governors Association meeting, where they chatted privately for perhaps 15 minutes. They met in person for a second time last week, when he invited her to his ranch in Sedona, Ariz. There, McCain offered her a spot on his ticket. Just how deeply the campaign probed her background and finances isn't clear. The campaign dispatched staffers to Alaska this week, but spokesman Brian Rogers says they aren't investigating Palin. They are there "to coordinate and facilitate communications" with Palin's family and friends. The scrutiny of a national campaign has sometimes been embarrassing, even disastrous. For Dan Quayle, picked by the elder George Bush as his running mate in 1988, questions about his service in the National Guard and admission to law school created the impression Quayle was a political lightweight. In 1972, the revelation that Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton had undergone shock therapy forced him off the Democratic ticket. That didn't help the beleaguered nominee, George McGovern. He lost 49 states. 'He's catering, or he's folding' Palin may do more for McCain's base than for the swing voters he needs to attract. Teresa Ludwig, 56, a health and safety officer at the University of Minnesota, participated in the roundtable with undecided voters Sunday, sponsored by AARP. She voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. This year, she attended the state's Democratic caucuses for Clinton but was weighing a vote for McCain because of his maverick image and history of bipartisanship. Now McCain's choice of Palin has made her lean toward the Democrats again. "When he picked Palin, I was just, 'Oh, gee, I know who won on this one.' It was just placating to the religious-right base," Ludwig says. "He's catering, or he's folding." The opportunity to elect a woman doesn't sway this former Clinton supporter. "We can't be bought that easy," she says. "If something does happen to McCain, and she ends up being president, we're in big trouble," says Wendy Brumm, 53, of Ham Lake, who works in an after-school program and joined the roundtable. Still, Brumm admires Palin's opposition to abortion and finds her intriguing. "She's got potential," Brumm says. "I think she's got a lot of guts." Palin's biggest test could come Oct. 2 in St. Louis, at the debate between the vice presidential candidates. That will be a prime opportunity to settle questions about her qualifications. "It's like bringing somebody up from Triple A to the majors during the World Series," says David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union and a Palin supporter. "It's not the same game and nobody knows if they're going to be able to hit the pitches or not." The McCain campaign's dominant argument against Obama has been that he's not ready to be president. Palin's short résumé— she has been governor for less than 20 months — doesn't undercut that, McCain strategist Schmidt says. "She is, by any objective measurement, more experienced and more accomplished than Sen. Obama," Schmidt says. "She's the governor of a state, she deals with multibillion-dollar budgets, she has a record of accomplishment." McCain's wife, Cindy, has joined the defense. "Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia. So it's not as if she doesn't understand what's at stake here," Cindy McCain said Sunday on ABC's This Week. Obama's running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, is everything Palin is not. At 65, he is a six-term senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on a first-name basis with foreign leaders worldwide. But Palin's candidacy and the vice presidential debate presents risks for Biden, too. She is a matter-of-fact Alaskan; he is a Washington fixture with a reputation for verbosity. In referring to women, he has tended to mention style as well as substance. Last week, he introduced wife Jill as "drop-dead gorgeous" before he mentioned her doctorate in education. On Sunday, he described Palin to an Ohio crowd as "good looking." In a debate, Biden's self-confidence could come across as condescending or even bullying. That's a lesson then-congressman Rick Lazio learned when he debated Clinton during the 2000 New York Senate race. He crossed the stage to her lectern, waving a written pledge on campaign finance and urging her to sign it. Some female voters recoiled, and Lazio's poll standing slumped. "There's no way she was intimidated, but that wasn't the point. I should have been smarter about how the audience was going to view that," Lazio says. "If I was Biden, I'd be thinking about that." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. 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