ANCHORAGE — Like so many other distinctions about Alaska — the biggest, wildest, coldest state not even half a century removed from its territorial days — being governor here is just flat different.

“Alaska is its own world,” said Tony Knowles, a Democrat who served as governor from 1994 to 2002.

Sarah Palin’s experience as Alaska’s governor since taking office in late 2006 has been a keystone argument by Republicans that she is fit to serve as vice president. At the convention Wednesday in St. Paul, Ms. Palin and other speakers contended that her time as governor has given her more practical experience than Mr. Obama.

Many Americans in other states, though, might not recognize the job she holds or the unusual challenges she has faced — from managing a $5 billion budget surplus in a time of economic distress elsewhere, to upending an entrenched political establishment within her own party that was literally around for the state’s founding.

Alaska’s economic well-being — sustained, as most things are here, by oil and federal spending — has allowed Ms. Palin to avoid some of the tough budgetary choices vexing governors in dozens of other states. That in turn raises questions for some people about how much her experience is relevant to the rest of the nation and how much she can relate to the troubles of struggling blue-collar workers in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, worried about the winter gas bills and the mortgage.