pastor of the Wasilla Bible Church, which is where the Palin family heads on Sunday. Two weeks ago Kroon made his pulpit available to David Brickner, executive director of Jews for Jesus and a man who has said terrorist attacks on Israelis are God's "judgment of unbelief" on Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. Kroon says that Sarah Palin was in church that day.

Soon Palin will be pressed to distance herself from Kroon, the same way Obama was forced to toss his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, over the side. It's one thing to say, as Palin has publicly, that both the Iraq war and the natural gas pipeline she's pressing for (as is Obama) are both God's will, another to urge all Jews to become Christians or court damnation. Jews don't trust Obama which is partly why he picked Joe Biden. Jews don't really trust the woman who might be a heartbeat away from the presidency, since she once sported a Buchanan button, and worships chez Kroon.

Such tribulations lie ahead. This Boadicea of the Backwoods will probably finesse them,

since she's shown she can be politically flexible. As governor of Alaska she's already avoided opportunities to press for anti-gay legislation and for promotion of creationism in schools.

As a political performer her best act so far on the national stage was her more impromptu speech in Ohio when McCain first announced his choice. At St Paul last night her Minnie Mouse-like nasal timbre soon became irksome and she blew the timing on many of the lines in the rambling speech she'd been handed. Will she give the McCain campaign the lift it needs?

If Palin can woo and win voters along the Ohio valley and north of Pittsburgh – exactly where Hillary Clinton did well – she may help McCain pull out a win on November 4. But someone in the McCain camp has to come up with an economic plan. 2008 is a hard year for the Republicans to recover from the second most unpopular president in living memory. Soap operas won’t do the trick.