Republicans offer safe harbor for VP pick Palin

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2008

ST PAUL, Minnesota (AFP) — Sarah Palin is sure of a rapturous welcome from the Republican convention, but the under-fire vice presidential pick must win over a much tougher crowd -- an America that hardly knows her.

After days in the eye of a political storm, the Alaska governor is expected to step into the primetime spotlight on Wednesday less than a week after John McCain catapaulted her from national obscurity by naming her his running mate.

In a blizzard of disclosures, US voters have among other things since learned Palin's unmarried teenaged daughter is pregnant, and that she has hired a lawyer to defend herself in an abuse of power probe.

She has also been linked to an obscure Alaskan Independence Party, and Democrats have rapped her for lacking the...