Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin cast herself as a family-centered public servant from small-town America who will help Republican presidential nominee John McCain vanquish the Democrats and bring change to Washington.

In a speech last night to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, accepting her party's nomination for vice president, Palin skewered Democratic candidate Barack Obama and the news media as members of a ``Washington elite'' that she had no interest in joining.

``I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this great country,'' Palin said. ``Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people.''

Palin's speech may have been the most anticipated of the convention, which was shortened by almost a full day because of Hurricane Gustav. She is seeking to dispel questions about her qualifications and self-described status as a reformer that have swirled since she became McCain's running mate on Aug. 29.

Independent pollster Andrew Kohut called the speech a positive first step for Palin in presenting herself as a candidate for national office. He said she did a good job in striking a ``just-ordinary-folks'' tone.

`Effective Communicator'

``She exceeded expectations in terms of her communications skills,'' said Kohut, president of the Washington-based Pew Research Center. ``She was a little too sarcastic and maybe a little too negative. But overall she came across as an effective communicator.''

Comparing herself to Obama, Palin said, ``I guess a small- town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.'' Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, with a population under 10,000, before she became governor.

The Obama campaign was quick to defend the Democratic nominee's work as an activist in Chicago. ``Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies,'' Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement.

The Democrat's chief strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters this morning on the way to a campaign event in Pennsylvania that Obama watched part of Palin's speech and is taking such attacks ``in stride.''

``They're shedding an awful lot of heat and no light,'' Axelrod said.

Ovations and Cheers

The Republican delegates responded to Palin with ovations and cheers -- and then voted to formally nominate her and McCain, as the party's candidates in the Nov. 4 election.

Palin's speech, her biggest so far on the national stage, shed only a little light on her policies. She indicated that she favors fighting for as long as necessary in Iraq, continuing the Bush administration's tax cuts and boosting domestic energy production -- all consistent with McCain's positions.

``In a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines and build more nuclear plants and create jobs with clean coal and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources,'' she said.

Palin, 44, painted an autobiographical portrait aimed at dismissing questions about her readiness for national office.

She narrated a journey from an ``average hockey mom'' who joined the PTA out of a concern for education to posts in municipal government and then the Alaska statehouse.

There, Palin said, she began by selling the governor's jet and firing the personal chef. She said she went on to cut taxes and spending and take on ``the old politics as usual,'' fighting special interests and oil companies and passing ethics legislation.

Governing Issues

Still, she hasn't had to deal with the type of problems -- balancing a budget and loss of manufacturing jobs -- that confront many governors. Alaska's $36 billion Permanent Fund, derived from oil revenue, makes it more like energy-rich nations such as Abu Dhabi and Norway than the rest of the U.S.

``I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending,'' Palin told her enthusiastic convention audience. ``We suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress.''

Palin repeatedly praised McCain, 72, as a leader with a record of ``actual achievement and reform'' who has devoted his political career to fighting for the public interest.

And she drew a sharp contrast between McCain and Obama, dismissing the Democratic nominee as a politician more interested in his own political ascent than serving the country.

Lauding McCain

``Among politicians, there is the idealism of high-flown speechmaking, in which crowds are stirringly summoned to support great things,'' she said. ``And then there is the idealism of those leaders, like John McCain, who actually do great things.''

She said her 19-year-old soldier son, Track, will be deployed to Iraq on Sept. 11, and that as a mother she wants McCain as commander in chief.

Palin mocked the stagecraft for Obama's Aug. 28 Denver acceptance speech in front of almost 80,000 people that evoked the architecture of a Greek temple.

``When the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot,'' she asked, ``what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet?''

``There was so much red meat in that speech that it raised my cholesterol 40 points,'' said Maryland State Republican Chairman James Pelura III.

Sending a Message

Republican pollster Whit Ayres called the speech ``exactly what we needed'' and said it delivered a sharp message: ``I'm ready to be vice president, we need John McCain as president, and Barack Obama is not'' ready.

Ayres said the lack of issue positions worked. ``A convention acceptance speech is not supposed to be a laundry list of political proposals,'' he said. ``It's supposed to give you a sense of who this person is and where they want to take the country.''

In the six days since McCain announced Palin as his running mate, she has been buffeted by questions about her tenure as governor and the disclosure that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant. Palin seemed to allude to that in her speech.

``Our family has the same ups and downs as any other,'' she said.

Her family was seated in the hall, including Bristol and her future husband, Levi Johnston. Bristol and Palin's husband, Todd Palin, took turns cradling the Palins' youngest son, five-months- old Trig, who was born with Down syndrome.

Palin promised that, if elected, families with ``special- needs children'' like Trig would have ``a friend and advocate in the White House.''

The McCain campaign yesterday said it was considering legal action against the National Enquirer for publishing allegations that Palin had an extramarital affair, a report that McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt called a ``vicious lie.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Ken Fireman in St. Paul, Minnesota at kfireman1@bloomberg.net; Catherine Dodge in St. Paul at cdodge1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 4, 2008 10:56 EDT