An Apostle of Alaska

Little of her experience will help Palin with the questions she's sure to face in the days and weeks to come. The media (and presumably voters) will aim to find out what Palin believes, what her expertise is and whether she's really prepared to be next in line for the most powerful job on the planet. At last week's Republican convention, the former sportscaster proved she can deliver a terrific speech (written by Matthew Scully, who wrote some of George W. Bush's more memorable lines). But journalists are clamoring for a chance to question her directly. She'll need to have cogent views on Iraq, to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites (which McCain himself has occasionally confused) and the distinctions between Hizbullah and Al Qaeda. She'll be asked about Iran's nuclear program and China's growing power, about the national debt, the subprime mortgage crisis, America's trade imbalance and the value of the dollar against foreign currencies.

Palin started intense tutorials last week in a suite of the Hilton Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Stephen Biegun, a longtime foreign-policy hand who last worked on George W. Bush's National Security Council, ran what one participant called a "boot camp on McCain world." Biegun and others briefed her on international issues. McCain's top domestic-policy adviser, economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, led other sessions. Before Holtz-Eakin even got started, Palin let him know that she likes to get her study points on large index cards. "What we have to do is take all our accumulated policy and John McCain's entire Senate history and get her comfortable with the campaign," Holtz-Eakin told NEWSWEEK.

Others involved in the process say Palin has a long way to go, and they are watching closely to make sure she doesn't get overwhelmed. Over the weekend before the convention, campaign aides made the uncomfortable decision to urge her to go public with her unmarried 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy in order to rebut salacious Internet rumors that the teen was actually the mother of Palin's own newborn child. An aide, speaking anonymously because the matter is sensitive, says that Palin and her husband grew angry about the allegations. "Do I have to show them my stretch marks?" she asked one campaign official. In the midst of the drama, Palin had little time to interact with her family because she was shuffling from one briefing or prep session to another. (In St. Louis, a campaign aide took Todd shopping at a Saks Fifth Avenue, where he bought a new suit to wear to the convention.) At one point McCain, himself tied up in campaign duties, asked an adviser, "Can you make sure she's OK?"

Despite the worries, she struck many campaign officials as more calm and cerebral than expected. She was quick to ask questions, and to "engage in a back and forth" with briefers. One aide describes her as "quick on her feet"—like "a lawyer who didn't go to law school." (As an undergrad, she bounced among five different colleges in Hawaii, Alaska and Idaho, and eventually got a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho.) She's particularly knowledgeable about energy issues. The campaign will try to make that look like foreign-policy expertise. Holtz-Eakin expects the hardest tutorials to be on health care. ("Anybody whose eyes don't glaze over when it comes to health policy has got a serious disorder," he joked.) More broadly, briefers have assembled a book of every speech McCain gave during the campaign as an introduction to "McCain world."

In the battle with Obama and Joe Biden, the McCain campaign will emphasize Palin's executive responsibilities, her judgment, her instincts, her reformist credentials and her fighting spirit. Aides might encourage her to take the lead on energy issues, emphasizing one policy area she's very familiar with. They'll also play up her small-town roots, trying to draw comparisons to Harry Truman. Palin herself made two references to Truman in her nomination speech. "Long ago, a young former haberdasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency," she said. Then she quoted the writer Westbrook Pegler: "We grow good people in our small towns with honesty, sincerity and dignity." The analogy is strained. Truman served for 10 years in Congress before becoming vice president. But Palin does have similar spunk, and she does come from a small town. For better or worse, she'd bring those small-town values to Washington.

This story was reported by Karen Breslau, Andrew Murr and Mark Hosenball in Anchorage, Alaska; Suzanne Smalley in St. Paul, Minn.; Michael Isikoff, Michael Hirsh and Daniel Stone in Washington, D.C.; Holly Bailey with the McCain campaign, and Lisa Miller, Sarah Kliff and Katie Paul in New York. It was written by Jeffrey Bartholet and Breslau.

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