KEY POINTS:
The sudden intrusion of adolescent bedroom drama into the United States presidential race threatens to rock, if not quite capsize, the nascent McCain-Palin ticket.
Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential nominee, astonished Republican delegates assembled in St Paul for their truncated convention yesterday by announcing that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant.
The revelation was an effort to extinguish tawdry internet rumours about who is the real mother of the Alaska Governor's fifth child born in April this year.
Left-wing blogger sites, including the prominent Daily Kos, had been speculating that Palin's fifth child, Trig, who was diagnosed with Down's syndrome, was in fact carried by Bristol, who would then have been 16. The implication was that Palin, a social conservative, claimed the baby as her own to cover up Bristol's indiscretion.
The Daily Kos purported to have evidence that the Governor was never pregnant with Trig, including photographs that seem to show her displaying no visible signs of pregnancy and others with Bristol showing a bump on her tummy.
It was partly to thwart the rumours that Palin made her statement that Bristol was five months' pregnant and will marry the father and keep the child.
Palin made no public appearances in St Paul yesterday and the announcement of Bristol's pregnancy came after her children and her husband, Todd, who works for BP, had landed back in Alaska, beyond the reach of political journalists. The statement was issued by the Governor and Todd Palin jointly.
It said in part: "Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support."
McCain's aides insisted he was aware of Bristol's pregnancy when he picked her mother last week. It was not clear last night whether the news will appal conservative voters or appeal to them. Bristol did not, after all, elect to abort.
The impression persists, meanwhile, that because Palin only emerged as a serious contender for the vice-presidency in the final days of the search process last week, the normal vetting procedures might have been shortened and there are more rough edges to her than the McCain team realises.
Being highlighted already, for instance, is the role she played in encouraging her state to sue the US Interior Department after it placed polar bears on the Endangered Species Act. She does not think they are endangered. That and her enthusiasm for drilling for oil almost anywhere could obscure McCain's claim to be environmentally sensitive.
And her "clean-hands" reputation for challenging cronyism and corruption in Alaska may be about to be severely compromised by allegations surrounding the recent firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, after he ignored requests to fire a state trooper who was divorced from Palin's sister.
- INDEPENDENT
