Palin Comes Out Fighting

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Tough Palin Takes Aim at Critics, Opponents

Sarah Palin electrified the crowd at the Xcel Center on Wednesday night by describing herself as a "hockey mom" and delivering sharp comments to her critics and opponents.

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Using some of the toughest language of the night, Huckabee predicted that Obama would "continue to give madmen the benefit of the doubt. If he's wrong just once, we will pay a heavy price."

McCain "will follow the fanatics to their caves in Pakistan or to the gates of hell," he said. "What Obama wants to do is give them a place setting at the table."

Anticipating the importance of Palin's debut before a national audience, McCain speechwriter Matthew Scully spent days working on the speech, and she rehearsed it repeatedly as McCain aides offered coaching. Before she delivered it, they began an all-out effort to defend her and take the offensive against her critics, mobilizing surrogates to tell her story and accusing journalists of creating a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee."

Earlier, Palin greeted McCain as he arrived in Minnesota, and the two posed for photographers on the tarmac with their families, a gathering that included a dozen children -- her five and his seven. Joining them was Levi Johnston, 18, the fiance of Palin's daughter Bristol and the father of the baby she is due to deliver in December, who had flown in from Alaska. McCain hugged Bristol and spoke to her at length, then greeted Johnston before putting his arms around both of them. The McCain family then went to the Minneapolis Convention Center to help pack hurricane relief supplies.

McCain campaign officials pushed back aggressively against media coverage of both Gov. Palin's background and Bristol Palin's pregnancy, declaring in a statement early Wednesday that they would no longer discuss how well or poorly they had vetted Palin's record.

"This nonsense is over. It is time to begin the debate about how to win the two wars this country is engaged in; how to make this country energy-independent; and how to create jobs for American families that are hurting," senior adviser Steve Schmidt wrote. "The American people get to do the vetting now on Election Day -- November 4th."

McCain also released a television ad titled "Alaska's Maverick" on Wednesday, touting Palin an "agent of reform." And a late-afternoon statement by the campaign took an unusual step by decrying the "smearing of the Palin family" and calling allegations in the tabloid National Enquirer that Palin had an affair "a vicious lie."

Staff writers Robert Barnes and Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.