JOHN McCAIN has shaken up the US presidential race by choosing as his running mate Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a 44-year-old conservative who is almost unknown outside her own state.
Ms Palin is the first woman to run on a major party presidential ticket since Geraldine Ferraro was the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate in 1984.
Mr McCain's surprise choice eclipsed Barack Obama's speech accepting the Democratic nomination before more than 80,000 people in a Denver football stadium on Thursday night. More than 38 million people watched Mr Obama's speech, an impassioned enunciation of his vision for America's future, making it the most widely watched convention speech in US history.
Mr McCain introduced his running mate at an event in Dayton, Ohio, yesterday. He had kept political pundits guessing after it emerged that the media's frontrunners, including former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, had been rejected.
Mr McCain praised Ms Palin as a Washington outsider with strong principles and a record of fighting corruption in Alaska, including within the Republican Party.
"She's exactly who this country needs to help me fight the same old Washington politics," he said.
A former beauty queen and high school basketball player, Ms Palin, known as "Sarah Barracuda", was mayor of her hometown Wasilla until she became governor two years ago. A passionate opponent of abortion and a proponent of low taxes and reduced public spending, Ms Palin's selection was welcomed throughout the Republican Party.
"I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbour is safe, but that's not why the ship is built," she said yesterday.
Ms Palin paid tribute to Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination, making clear that the Republicans are targeting the 18 million who voted for the former first lady.
"It turns out the women of America aren't finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all," she said.
Mr Obama and running mate Joe Biden issued a statement welcoming Ms Palin's selection as "yet another encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics".
Other Democrats slammed the choice; Mr Obama's spokesman Bill Burton dismissed Ms Palin as an inexperienced, conservative ideologue. "John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency," he said.
Democrats left Denver yesterday energised by Mr Obama's speech on Thursday, which came on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech.
Mr Obama characterised his Republican rival as out of touch with contemporary American life and in thrall to the unpopular policies of president George Bush.
"Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land - enough!" Mr Obama said.
"This moment - this election - is our chance to keep . . . the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third . . . we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight."
Mr Obama promised to restore a sense of common purpose in American public life and to seek agreement even on the most contentious of issues.
"We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country," he said.
"There are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination."