However, as the first woman on a Republican national ticket, she potentially appeals to angry Hillary Clinton supporters and to so-called values voters who pushed McCain to choose a running mate who is against abortion and gay marriage.
"John McCain is to be commended on his choice of Sarah Palin, a true Christian for Vice President," said Dr. Gary Cass, Chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.
"Palin, an evangelical who is pro-life and pro-marriage, meets all the criterion that CADC set forth for a VP pick. Unfortunately, Obama chose Joe Biden, a liberal Catholic, who is not in compliance with Christian moral teaching on abortion or homosexuality."
Cass was particularly relieved that McCain did not tap former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, or Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Jew.
“Will [McCain] pick a pro-choice Republican or perhaps a moderate Mormon or a liberal Jew?” Cass said in an earlier statement of concern that was echoed by other conservative Christian organizations nationwide.
"Unless McCain picks a true Christian for Vice President, real conservative Christians are being disenfranchised from this presidential election,” Cass warned. “Obama missed a great chance to reach out to Christians. Now we will see if McCain will let conservative Christians have someone we can vote for, not just vote against."
On Friday, other conservative Christian groups also celebrated Palin’s selection.
"The country now has a clear choice," said Darla St. Martin, Co-Executive Director of the National Right to Life Committee, "between an avowed pro-abortion ticket that would continue to push for unrestricted abortion on demand, and a strongly pro-life ticket that will bring us closer to a society that embraces the value and dignity of human life."
Palin is staunchly opposed to both same-sex marriage and granting benefits to same-sex partners. When a state court ruled last year that civil unions are to be permitted for same-sex couples, Palin balked, and called for the state constitution to be amended to in an attempt to upend the ruling.
She also has favored the teaching of creationism in schools along with evolution. "Teach both,” Palin said in 2006. “Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.”
Vendettas
Still, many political observers wondered if Palin’s limited – and checkered – career as an official in a lightly populated state like Alaska might prove to be a liability for McCain.
Following her two terms as mayor of Wasilla, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination in 2002.
Then, as chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she fell into a public spat with fellow commissioner Randy Ruedrich, the state’s GOP chairman.
In 2003, she reported Ruedrich to Gov. Frank Murkowski’s administration, saying she suspected him of an ethics breach in conducting work for the state GOP on government time.
To obtain evidence of Ruedrich’s alleged malfeasance, Palin hacked into his computer, an ethical lapse in its own right. She resigned from the commission in January 2004.
But Palin’s ethics complaint against Ruedrich gave her a reputation as an anti-establishment reformer at a time when the Alaskan Republican hierarchy was coming under scrutiny for corruption.
For two years, she stayed out of politics, acquiring a business license for a marketing and consulting company named Rogue Cou, “a classy way of saying redneck,” Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in a June 2005 interview.
Palin also faced questions about hypocrisy in the vendetta that she waged against Ruedrich when it turned out that, as mayor of Wasilla, she had used her office computer for political purposes.
“We wondered how her using a city computer to run for lieutenant governor in 2002 was different than Republican Party chief Randy Ruedrich using Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission computers for party business, for which he was fined and resigned under pressure. She said it was different,” the Anchorage Daily News wrote in a July 14, 2006, editorial.
