Firewall Around Palin Ahead of Her Big Moment

The Republicans set up a firewall around Sarah Palin yesterday, in a concerted attempt ahead of her debut to choke off or deflect questions about her experience.

Last night she was making her first appearance at the Republican convention and her first before a national TV audience, after being embraced by the party's social conservative wing, and injecting much-needed enthusiasm into their support for candidate John McCain.

However, in a sign Republicans are nervous at his decision to make the unknown governor of Alaska his running mate, party operatives began an aggressive defence of the vice-presidential candidate.

A TV campaign ad released yesterday set out to build a case she is a more effective agent of change than Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

The campaign said it would not answer questions on McCain's decision-making process before settling on Palin. It also lined up party leaders to talk up her achievements and to dismiss as sexist any criticism of her experience or lack of it.

An angry McCain canceled an interview with CNN after an on-air clash between an interviewer and a press spokesman over Palin's foreign policy experience. There was also a parallel effort to squash discussion of her family life, including that of her pregnant daughter Bristol, 17.

The entire Palin family was lined up on the tarmac at Minneapolis airport to greet McCain's arrival yesterday, including Bristol and her boyfriend, Levi Johnston. McCain made a point of chatting to the couple and gripping Johnston's arm. Aside from this, and a walkaround on the convention stage earlier, Palin was in hibernation - leaving it to her fellow Republicans to rally to her defence.

Officially, the campaign is convinced she will appeal to centrist voters - especially women. But that brave front was undermined by a video which surfaced yesterday of an off-air chat between top Republican strategists Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan, in which they said "cynicism" and "political bullshit" drove McCain to choose Palin.

Earlier, Republican campaign manager, Rick Davis spoke of "frenzied scrutiny" of Palin by the media as she spent a third successive day in her hotel suite. She has given only one interview - to People magazine - since being named as McCain's running mate. During her sequestration, Palin has been coached by senior campaign aides on McCain's policy positions, and honed the delivery of her address.

Davis told the Washington Post that a speech already prepared, evidently before McCain made his choice of a woman, had been "very masculine", and "we had to start from scratch" to write one for her.

Other aides said last night's advice to her would depart from the manner of Palin's introductory speech last week - when she called herself a "hockey mom" - and focus instead on her record as a reform-minded governor and an authority on energy. Until then, it was left to the campaign to beat blunt fallout from further revelations about Palin's background and family life.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, led the charge yesterday, trying to link his record of governing a city of 8m with Palin's experience as steward of a town of 8,000. In an interview with CBS, Giuliani argued Palin was more qualified to be president because she had been a governor and run a budget.

He added: "Has anybody ever asked Barack Obama, can you bring up your two kids and be president of the United States? They are asking, 'Can she be vice-president and be a mother?' Come on."