Elections

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Sarah Palin, Republican John McCain's surprise choice for vice president, has a distinctively Alaskan pedigree that served her well in an improbable rise from small town mayor to one of the most beloved governors in the state's history.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said Friday he was excited by Republican White House hopeful John McCain's surprise choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

DAYTON, OHIO, — In one of the most shocking vice-presidential selections in political history, John McCain has tapped Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old first-term governor of Alaska, to be his running mate.

Reaction to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate:

DENVER (Reuters) - Barack Obama launched a sharp assault on Republican presidential rival John McCain on Thursday with a promise to reverse the economic failures of the past eight years and restore America's global reputation.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday congratulated Alaska Governor Sarah Palin on her selection as John McCain's running-mate, while a campaign spokesman highlighted her "zero" foreign policy experience.

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain's vice presidential running mate, lacks the experience to lead the country and won't offer much appeal to women voters, said Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.

DENVER - Republican John McCain shook up the presidential race with his surprise choice of little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday. Democrat Barack Obama, entering a crucial stage of the campaign fresh off his historic nominating convention, began a tour of battleground states.

DENVER, Colorado (AFP) - Energized by a historic Democratic convention, Barack Obama Friday plunged back onto the campaign trial as his Republican rival John McCain shook up the White House race with a surprise VP pick.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - If not for flooding at a remote creek, Chuck and Sally Heath might have found out by radio that their daughter, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, had been picked by John McCain to be his GOP running mate.

DENVER--Invoking the iconic images of John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama promised to lead America to a new era of prosperity, peace, and conciliation as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night before a jubilant crowd of 80,000 at Invesco Field.

NAME — Sarah Heath Palin.

DAYTON, Ohio (AFP) - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Friday confirmed his choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his White House running mate, his office said.

DENVER - John McCain tapped little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate on Friday in a startling selection on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

DAYTON, Ohio (AFP) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain on Friday named conservative Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in a surprise choie for his vice presidential running mate, campaign officials told AFP.

DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) - Republican John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday, a senior campaign official said, in a surprise choice that could help him appeal to women voters.

Thursday night, on a date symbolic of both the worst and the best of recent life for African-Americans, a black man stood in a football stadium in Denver and made history, accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president.

DAYTON, United States (AFP) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain on Friday named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, US media reported.

WASHINGTON - Katrina was a natural disaster that turned into a political one for the Bush administration. Gustav, now on course for the Gulf Coast almost three years to the day since that hurricane struck, could offer the chance for redemption or point-scoring in the presidential campaign.

DUBLIN (AFP) - Both US presidential hopeful Barack Obama and running mate Joseph Biden are descended from shoemakers who emigrated from Ireland within five weeks of each other, a researcher said Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, among the contenders to be Republican John McCain's vice presidential candidate, said he would not be with McCain in Ohio on Friday when he announces his running mate.

DENVER - The focus of the presidential campaign shifts to Republicans on Friday as GOP candidate John McCain is set to introduce his running mate at a rally in Ohio.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' political fate could be up to his colleagues if a jury decides the Senate's longest-serving Republican has violated the law.