Although a Vice President(ial candidate) seldom has a big impact, Gerard Baker believes that Sarah Palin could be different. She could truly, he argues, change the Republican Party and influence America to a significant degree. In fact, Gerard says, she “and her ilk” already have influenced the GOP tremendously. He starts off by pointing out that Democrats have the strange tendency to underestimate politicians they do not understand. Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher and now Sarah Palin have all been underestimated by the enlightened big-city liberals. They talk funny, have funny views, their families are not normal, and they come from small villages. How could someone like that, the average Democratic leader seems to think, have political talent? So, when it was clear Palin would be McCain’s running mate and address the Republican National Convention, Democrats and their friends in the media celebrated; what a wonderful time they would have watching her stumble and fumble. They grabbed the popcorn and coke and tuned in for Palin’s laughable speech.Sadly for them, it went slightly differently; no stumbling, and no fumbling. Palin delivered a mightily strong speech, in which she destroyed the Democratic candidate Barack Obama. And so, for the umptiest time, Democrats were surprised by a conservative politician. As Gerard writes:

No one paid much attention to the fact that she had been elected governor of a state. Or that she got to that office not because, unlike some politicians I could mention, her husband had been there before her, or because she bleated continuously about glass ceilings, but by challenging the entrenched interests in her own party and beating them. In almost two years as Governor she has cleaned out the Augean stables of Alaskan Government. You don’t win a statewide election and enjoy approval ratings of more than 80 per cent without real political talent.Never mind all that. She didn’t have a passport! She was a former beauty queen! It was so axiomatic that she was a disaster that I was told by lots of savvy men - with deliciously unconscious sexism - that the real problem was what the choice said about Mr McCain and his judgment: cynical, irresponsible, clueless. It was as if Mrs Palin wasn’t really a human being at all, but an article of Mr McCain’s clothing that showed his poor taste, like wearing brown shoes with a charcoal suit.

Now, what is so significant about Palin’s performance is that it shows she could play an important role in the Republican Party in the coming years. She is not some untalented politician, no, she is highly talented and could be very successful.Because she could be so important, it is necessary to take a look at who she is, what she represents and what she could do. Again Gerard explains it wonderfully well:

First of all she offers an opportunity for an ailing Republican party to reconnect with ordinary Americans. She’s conservative, but her conservatism is not that of the intolerant, uncomprehending white male sort that has so hurt the party in recent years. She is much closer to a model of the lives of ordinary Americans - working mother, plainspoken everywoman juggling home and office - than any Republican leader in memory.The contrast with Mr Obama is especially powerful. The very fact that Mrs Palin didn’t go to elite schools but succeeded nonetheless - the very ordinariness with which she so piquantly jabbed Mr Obama on Wednesday - is what will make her so appealing to Americans. And as a pro-life conservative she debunks in one swoop the enduring myth that all women subscribe to the obligatory nostrums of radical feminism.

And there is more: unlike Hillary Clinton, McCain and his team seem to have decided not to make experience the major issue of these elections. Sure, they are using Obama’s lack of experience against him, but McCain’s choice of Palin probably signifies something else; Palin and McCain are both mavericks and reformers. As PoliGazette’s Michael Merritt pointed out earlier Friday, they have adopted a message and platform of change (much like Obama). Their change, however, is of an entirely different sort; it is rooted in an independent-minded conservatism.Now, Democrats thought that when Palin first became McCain’s number two Republicans would use the usual themes; Palin, they thought, is passionate about the culture war. Seemingly, the McCain campaign would try to exploit those issues for electoral gain.Although Palin is certainly a social conservative, however, it seems that McCain and Palin are not trying to fight any culture wars. They have more important things to do, more important issues to talk about. They will, and have already started doing so, present themselves as maverick reformers, willing to take on the establishment of their own party. And unlike Barack Obama both have the record to prove they can indeed succeed.McCain-Palin is, in the words of Gerard, “not reaction, but reform - a reform rooted in a distant conservatism that could be due for a comeback.” A reform, therefore, dangerous to Democrats.

Hailing from Arizona and Alaska, the Republican ticket has a chance to rekindle a western conservatism different from the old Yankee paternalist sort or the Bible Belt version. They like their guns out there (some still kill their own food) and they are pro-life and deeply pro-America, of course. But at a time of grave challenges, the themes of economic freedom and opportunity, the resistance to the idea that government holds all the answers, could resonate with voters.This is an election, as the Democrats have realised all along, about an America on the cusp of change. With the moose-hunting, establishment-taunting Mrs Palin at his side, Mr McCain might represent a bigger change than the one that his opponents are offering.

And so McCain has taken the advise of people like me to heart; if he wants to beat Obama he has to offer hope and change himself, but then of a different kind. An independent-minded conservative change is what McCain needs to offer the American people. If Palin and he succeed in presenting a clear cut case for such a change, they will have a reasonable change of winning in November. All McCain needs right now are three major themes, three ‘change’ reforms. Two he already has - health care and energy - and a third one is up for grabs - middle-class tax cut. He needs to adopt a clear stance on these issues and talk about then wherever he goes, as Lowry put it.