They didn't call her "Sarah Barracuda" in high school for nothing.

Normally, vice-presidential nominees don't end up swinging the outcome of a presidential race, political scientists like to say. It's the top of the ticket that nearly all voters base their decisions on. But this is a year in which a running mate – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the No. 2 to GOP nominee John McCain – could make a difference.

She has burst onto the national stage with such force, casting Senator McCain in a whole new light, that most engaged voters can't help but have an opinion.

The question is, does Governor Palin help or hurt McCain's chances? After her big speech Wednesday night at the Republican convention here, in which she delivered sharp rhetoric against the Democratic ticket and her critics and extolled her own virtues as a small-town, small-state executive and hockey mom, there was no doubt party regulars were enthralled.

"I pity Biden," says Coy Morton, an alternate delegate from Charlotte, Mich., speaking of the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Joseph Biden. "She's going to tear him up."

Mr. Morton, a retired crane operator, was worried that his party had been inching to the left – and that even if conservatives would still vote for McCain, they would not volunteer for him. But no more.

"I'm a leader in my township, and we now have boots on the ground we didn't have before," says Morton. "All the gals, right-to-life, home-schoolers, were going to vote for McCain, but they weren't going to work for him. Now they're going to work for him."

But for all the conservative faithful who were thrilled with Palin's address, at least one moderate in the hall wasn't so sure.

"Right now, I'm not really liking the direction the party is going in," says Ben Abrams, a senior at the University of Minnesota who attended the convention as a guest. "I caucused for McCain, after [Rudolph] Giuliani dropped out of the race. I viewed him as more of a moderate, but now I see him pandering to the right wing."

As for independent voters and the overall shape of the race, it will take several days of polling for the full effect of Palin's speech, and McCain's Thursday night, to show any impact.

But one thing is certain: Palin's speech will be discussed for days and weeks to come. In the five days between McCain's introduction of her as his running mate and her return to public view, she ran a gauntlet of media scrutiny. Her record as governor and, before that, mayor of small-town Wasilla, Alaska, have been probed – and are still being examined. Her teenage daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy, announced just days after Palin's selection, heightened scrutiny of McCain's vetting process. Her large family, including a baby diagnosed with Down syndrome, sparked a national discussion about working mothers.

On Wednesday night, Palin took the stage at the Xcel Energy Center loaded for bear – and ready to take on the traditional vice presidential role of attack dog.

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