The emergence of a formidable if unlikely ticket, featuring both a war hero and an instant heroine, has revved up the party's faithful and renewed their hopes of retaining the GOP's lease on the presidency. Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden indeed can expect to have to summon every argument and asset at their command to outscore John McCain and Sarah Palin in November.

Not so long ago, Republican prospects seemed as gloomy as Gulf Coast skies with a hurricane bearing down -- say, a storm like Hurricane Gustav, which scrambled the convention schedule at the outset. President Bush never made it to Minnesota, opting instead for a short speech televised from the White House.

Yes, that President Bush -- the one who's deep in the unpopularity tank, who embroiled the nation in a costly war of dubious necessity, under whose stewardship the economy has gone rancid. A tough act to follow, one might think, and not because his performance has been stellar.

And McCain's candidacy was virtually dead in the water this time last year. Many among the Republicans' conservative base couldn't abide his tendency to slip the ideological traces.

But the Arizona senator's support for an even more vigorous effort in Iraq paid off as that strategy, adopted by Bush, turned what had appeared to be a lost cause into a salvageable one. His record of grit as a Vietnam POW came to symbolize a determination and force of character that swept him to the nomination ahead of rivals such as Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson.

So would McCain follow the familiar path of choosing a running mate from among the also-rans, each of whom sang his praises at the convention? If he had, his party wouldn't now be in the throes of infatuation with the first-term governor of Alaska.

Sarah Palin knocked their socks off with her nomination acceptance speech Wednesday night. The 44-year-old mother of five is a bright, fresh face who talks up the virtues and values of middle America while flinging harpoons at the opposition that sting none the less because they're delivered with a grin.

Hockey mom. Army mom. A self-described pit bull with lipstick. McCain's choice of the person who could become our next vice president was way outside the Beltway and outside the box, but Palin will appeal to many Americans as a complementary figure to McCain and in her own right as feisty, smart and funny. Her commitment to boost support for special-needs children (such as her infant son) will resonate with millions.

For all that, Palin is on the ticket mainly because she can be counted upon to galvanize social conservatives whose feelings for McCain have been lukewarm.

What she's not on the ticket for is a track record that amounts to credible preparation to serve as president. Her experience as an executive, which she touted in her speech, is meager, and on matters of national security, foreign policy, economics, she might as well be starting from square one.

McCain, who would be the oldest president ever inaugurated, has made a choice that might help him get elected, but that asks the public to make a huge leap of faith regarding his potential successor. That is a point that neither Obama nor Biden will be too shy to make.

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