Still, right up until the moment he rendered his decision as final, Obama kept chuckling, shaking his head, and thinking, I can't believe I'm picking Biden. I can't believe I'm picking Biden.

And neither, really, could McCain, who heaved a sigh of relief when he learned the news with the rest of the world the next morning. McCain and his team had feared that Obama would tap Hillary, creating a megawatt media explosion that would block out the sun, consigning McCainworld to icy darkness.

"Well, good for Joe," McCain told one of his advisers. "But, boy, Obama will never get a word in edgewise now."

AS THE NEW DEMOCRATIC vice-presidential pick was elevated and celebrated, the previous one sat in North Carolina wondering how it had all gone so wrong.

The past month had been sheer h.e.l.l for Edwards; his life was falling apart. On July 22, the National Enquirer National Enquirer, which had become his own personal tormentor and truth squad, ran a story about him paying a secret visit to Rielle Hunter and her baby. Two weeks later, it published a grainy "spy photo" of Edwards holding the little girl.

Edwards, panicked, a.s.sembled a handful of his former staffers-Ginsberg, Prince, Jennifer Palmieri-to strategize about how to handle the latest installment of his rolling crisis. The group was at a loss, but Edwards settled on the idea of performing a mea culpa on ABC News's Nightline. Nightline. Don't do this interview unless you plan to tell the whole truth, Palmieri told Edwards, because if you lie, you're going to make things infinitely worse. Edwards replied that he was going to confess to the affair, but deny paternity of the child. He didn't want to jeopardize his chances of being Obama's attorney general. Don't do this interview unless you plan to tell the whole truth, Palmieri told Edwards, because if you lie, you're going to make things infinitely worse. Edwards replied that he was going to confess to the affair, but deny paternity of the child. He didn't want to jeopardize his chances of being Obama's attorney general.

Palmieri couldn't believe her ears. "That, John?" she said. "That was gone a long time ago." Palmieri had been on the phone with the Obama campaign, which was sending the clear, if gentle, signal that there was no longer even a slot available for Edwards to speak at the convention, that it was time for him to stand down with dignity. "You have to call Obama right now" and back out, Palmieri said.

"I don't want to give up on that yet," Edwards insisted.

Elizabeth hadn't given up yet, either. Confronted with the picture in the Enquirer Enquirer of her husband cuddling the baby, she told Palmieri she still believed that John was not the father. "I have to believe it," Elizabeth said. "Because if I don't, it means I'm married to a monster." of her husband cuddling the baby, she told Palmieri she still believed that John was not the father. "I have to believe it," Elizabeth said. "Because if I don't, it means I'm married to a monster."

As Palmieri predicted, the Nightline Nightline interview, on August 8, only brought more misery for Edwards, as the world gained a vivid picture of his pathology. When reality began to sink in, he started calling his old staffers and apologizing. Edwards finally accepted that he wasn't going to be attorney general. Not only wasn't he speaking at the convention, he wasn't even welcome in Denver. Edwards felt like an outcast. His weight plummeted. His countenance turned sickly. Some of his former aides began to fear that he might kill himself. And though the extent of his ruin didn't reach that depth, the months ahead held something horrible enough for Edwards: a final and all-too-public reckoning with the truth. interview, on August 8, only brought more misery for Edwards, as the world gained a vivid picture of his pathology. When reality began to sink in, he started calling his old staffers and apologizing. Edwards finally accepted that he wasn't going to be attorney general. Not only wasn't he speaking at the convention, he wasn't even welcome in Denver. Edwards felt like an outcast. His weight plummeted. His countenance turned sickly. Some of his former aides began to fear that he might kill himself. And though the extent of his ruin didn't reach that depth, the months ahead held something horrible enough for Edwards: a final and all-too-public reckoning with the truth.

SOME DAYS BEFORE THE convention got under way in Denver, Obama found himself on a campaign swing through Boston, the city where his meteoric and historic ascent began. Riding with Gibbs, Obama noted wryly, "We were here about four years ago, weren't we?"

"Yeah," Gibbs replied, "and our lives have been f.u.c.king complicated ever since."

Obama stared out the window and said, "Very complicated."

With his running mate chosen, the next challenge for Obama was to make his convention a success. And the central wrinkle was the former First Couple. The Clintons of Chappaqua rarely made an inconspicuous appearance at any social occasion. They were almost always, naturally and unavoidably, the center of attention. The question was whether, or how well, the Clintons would behave-and judging by two recent incidents, Obama had reason to be nervous.

In early August, on a trip to Africa, Bill Clinton had given an interview to Kate Snow of ABC News. After observing mulishly that "everybody's got a right to run for president who qualifies under the Const.i.tution," Clinton pointedly refused to affirm Obama's readiness to occupy the Oval Office. (He also renounced his friendship with Congressman Jim Clyburn and declared, with a Nixonian echo, "I am not a racist.") Two days later, a video surfaced of Hillary at a reception in California, speaking to a crowd of female supporters about the need for "catharsis" in Denver, seeming to suggest that her name be placed in nomination and a roll call vote conducted. The press seized on Clinton's comments and speculated about trouble brewing.

Two months after the Obama-Clinton trip to New Hampshire, Unity was still just a place on the map. Neither Hillary nor Bill had a shred of personal affection for, or connection with, Obama-whereas they continued to share a rapport with McCain. The Arizonan regularly phoned Bill and chatted with him about foreign policy. Boy, McCain gets it, the Clintons would tell people. John McCain is tough. The country might have been facing a "horrible choice," as Hillary had said to Penn, but some of the Clintons' friends got the impression that the couple was more than copacetic with the Republican prevailing.

Still smarting over the hits to his reputation on matters racial, and still blaming the Obamans, Bill was also now grumpy over what he perceived as being given the high hat. After the perfunctory Barack-Bill phone call in June, there had been no follow-up. No meal. No event. No requests for Clinton's counsel. And certainly no absolution. The first communication the former president's office received about the convention was a form letter that went to all of the delegates-letting Bill know he was eligible for a discounted hotel room in Denver.

As was typically the case with the Clintons, Hillary was looking forward while her husband was looking back. Despite her ongoing frustration over the Obamans' failure to a.s.sist in paring down her debt-they refused even to send out email solicitations to their Web donors, for crying out loud-she had started campaigning for Obama, saying all the right things on the stump, trying to inoculate herself from being blamed if he lost. For the first time, Hillary was willing to admit that Obama had what it took to win. After what I went through with this guy, she said to a friend, I can tell you, he's plenty tough.

But Hillary also believed that Obama was capable of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it up. And that his minions were severely underestimating the difficulty of inducing her supporters to shift their loyalties to him. An NBC News/ Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal poll that month found that only half of her voters were behind Obama-and 21 percent were for McCain. Hillary's talk of catharsis wasn't either idle chatter or malevolent cauldron-stirring. She was simply pointing out that her people needed to have their voices heard before they would rally around the Democratic nominee. poll that month found that only half of her voters were behind Obama-and 21 percent were for McCain. Hillary's talk of catharsis wasn't either idle chatter or malevolent cauldron-stirring. She was simply pointing out that her people needed to have their voices heard before they would rally around the Democratic nominee.

Although he had little direct contact with the Clintons, Obama had a lucid sense of where they stood. "She's okay," he told one of his advisers. "He's taking a lot longer to get over this."

Obama's att.i.tude toward the couple was sharply differentiated. From the moment he clinched the nomination, any rancor he felt toward Hillary evaporated. He needed her support, wanted her on his team, and was willing to work for it. But Bill was another story. Obama saw no benefit in kissing the ring, let alone the a.s.s, of 42. I'd be happy to call if it would make a difference I'd be happy to call if it would make a difference, Obama thought. But why waste my time if the guy's just going to keep c.r.a.pping all over me? But why waste my time if the guy's just going to keep c.r.a.pping all over me?

When it came to the convention, the Obamans a.s.sumed both Clintons would play nice, if only because it was in the couple's self-interest not to be perceived as the skunks at the garden soiree. The endless Clinton negotiations were annoying, to be sure. ("How did you deal with these people?" Plouffe asked Solis Doyle.) The unpredictability of the couple was a chafing distraction. But it was clear the Clintonites had no intention of setting off a bomb in Denver. They didn't want a floor fight. Their demands weren't crazy. They weren't even certain they wanted the roll call vote. Team Obama had hoped to confine both Clinton speeches to one evening. But word came back from Hillaryland that she expected a night to herself, and the Obamans were fine with that. A certain amount of Clinton drama, whipped up by an adrenalized media, was inevitable, they knew. Their aim was simply to keep it from consuming the convention.

THE CONVOCATION OPENED on the hot, dry Monday afternoon of August 25-and even before it was gaveled into session, Team Obama was receiving the first of many kicks in the teeth. On the streets of Denver, there were pro-Clinton, anti-Obama marchers. The papers were full of stories quoting Clinton delegates promising defiance. Cable news was riveted by the ravings of the PUMA faction. That night on CNN, James Carville, whom the Obamans (not unreasonably) saw as a conduit for the Clintons, trashed the first day's proceedings. "If this party has a message, it has done a h.e.l.l of a job of hiding it tonight," Carville moaned. "I look at this and I am about to jump out of my chair."

The collective reaction of the Obamans was: What the f.u.c.k? Hillary's speech was the following night, Bill's would be on Wednesday. If the Clintons were lackl.u.s.ter or subversive, the Obamans would have only one night to salvage the convention.

The Clintons themselves were lying low, sulking and stewing in their suite at the Brown Palace Hotel. They thought the convention was a mess, that their supporters were being treated like second-cla.s.s citizens, forced to bow and sc.r.a.pe for pa.s.ses and other goodies. Beyond that, however, both Clintons were obsessed with their speeches. They realized the stakes involved.

Hillary felt the pressure more than her husband. The eyes of the world would be on her Tuesday night as never before in the campaign. But by that morning, her speech was in good shape, she thought. She went over to the Pepsi Center, the sports arena where the first three days of the convention were taking place, to practice it on a prompter with the convention's dedicated speech coach, Michael Sheehan. When she was done, she returned to her room to rest. In the afternoon, she wandered down the hall to the small meeting room where her speechwriting team had been laboring over her text, to rehea.r.s.e it one last time. She picked up the speech, began to look it over-and was stunned to discover that the thing had been rewritten. It was unrecognizable.

"This is my speech?" Clinton said. What the h.e.l.l happened to it? is my speech?" Clinton said. What the h.e.l.l happened to it?

Your husband happened, her speechwriting team informed her. Bill had shown up with a pile of handwritten notes, ideas about how to restructure the speech to make it better. New lines, language, themes. The speechwriters had dutifully incorporated his edits.

Hillary was furious, apoplectic.

"This is my my speech!" she said, and then stalked out of the room and back to her suite. speech!" she said, and then stalked out of the room and back to her suite.

A few minutes later, Bill walked into the conference room looking sheepish and chastised. The speechwriters were frantically trying to reconstruct the address. There was paper strewn all over the long table, hard copies of various versions of the text. Standing over the addled aides as they cut and pasted on a laptop, Clinton attempted to pitch in. This was here, I added this, I like this, I like that, the former president said.

It was late in the afternoon by then; Hillary had only a couple of hours before she had to be onstage. Reporters were calling, asking why the Clintonites had yet to provide an advance text, accusing them of holding out. Earlier, the edgy Obamans had checked in with Sheehan about the speech and dispatched strategist Larry Grisolano to the Brown Palace lobby to take the one sneak peek that the Clinton people would allow. Sheehan and Grisolano reported back. It's great, they said. They had no idea that the speech had been rewritten and now was being rewritten again in an effort to restore it.

Hillary arrived at the Pepsi Center in a frenzy, still making edits in the back of the car. Then she walked onstage and knocked the ball clear into the upper deck. "Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our president," Hillary proclaimed. "Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance."

The next afternoon, the roll call began. The negotiations between the two sides over this had been protracted, but not as tense as the media claimed. The Obama forces had come to realize that Clinton wasn't wrong; that the depth and pa.s.sion of her support were greater than they'd imagined; that some degree of catharsis was indeed required. The Clintonites, meanwhile, had come to fear that a full roll call vote might wind up embarra.s.sing Hillary, as large numbers of her delegates defected out of a desire to come together behind the nominee. A compromise solution was engineered, with some states casting their votes for each candidate, but then a call for acclamation-by none other than Hillary herself, making a surprise appearance on the convention floor. "In the spirit of unity," she said, "with the goal of victory, let's declare together in one voice, right here, right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate and he will be our president!"

With Hillary having done her duty, that left Bill. There had been some tsuris between the Clintonites and Obamans over his speech, but again, less than the hyperventilators in the press made out. When the Clintonites learned their boss would be appearing on a night dedicated to foreign policy, they objected, insisting that Clinton wanted to talk about the economy. (Barack, who had relented and called the former president a few days before the convention, told his people, "He can talk about whatever he wants to talk about.") And as with Hillary, there was no advance text submitted for approval, which unsettled some of the Obamans.

Bill knew they were anxious, but he refused to rush. I'm going to take my time, and when I'm done, I'm done, he told Terry McAuliffe. If it's not done until a minute before, so be it.

It was done a little earlier than that, but not much. Once again, Grisolano legged it over to the Brown Palace to take a gander. When he finished perusing the speech, Grisolano looked up at the Clintonite who'd delivered it and smiled.

"Hey, you gotta do me one favor," Grisolano said.

"What's that?"

"Tell him not to change a thing."

OBAMA SHARED THAT a.s.sESSMENT as he watched Bill Clinton up on stage. Clinton did more than a dazzling job with his oratory. He did more than blow the room away with his charm. He said, with clear premeditation, precisely the words that Democrats in the hall and around the country wanted, needed, to hear from him: "Everything I learned in my eight years as president, and in the work I have done since in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job . . . Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States." Whether or not Clinton believed those words was, in a way, immaterial-as Obama understood. When it was over, Obama remarked to one of his aides, He went out there and did something that was really hard for him.

With all the Clinton-related commotion in the first three days of the convention, there were few other moments that broke through. Ted Kennedy's speech on Monday night was an exception. The senator, who had been diagnosed with a lethal brain tumor three months before, hauled himself to Denver and delivered what would be (and what everyone in the hall knew would be) his last convention speech-on behalf of the young senator to whom his endors.e.m.e.nt had meant so much.

The other exception, on the same night, was Mich.e.l.le Obama's speech. Ever since "proud of my country," Mich.e.l.le's public image had been in a bad way. In the campaign's focus groups, voters volunteered their misgivings: that she was unpatriotic, seemed ent.i.tled or angry. (The New Yorker New Yorker had captured the caricature on its cover that summer with a sketch portraying her as a gun-toting radical with an Angela Davis afro.) The Obamans knew this was their last best chance to rescue her from becoming a toxic spouse in the vein of Teresa Heinz Kerry. had captured the caricature on its cover that summer with a sketch portraying her as a gun-toting radical with an Angela Davis afro.) The Obamans knew this was their last best chance to rescue her from becoming a toxic spouse in the vein of Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Stealing a page from the Clinton playbook of 1992, they set out to use the convention stage to humanize her; to portray Mich.e.l.le as the loving mother, sister, and daughter that she was, and one reared not in privilege but in a blue-collar home. Working with Hillary's former speechwriter, Sarah Hurwitz, and the speech coach, Sheehan, Mich.e.l.le revised and rehea.r.s.ed for more than a month. The payoff was worth it. Her performance, slightly nervous but winningly sincere and at times bracingly direct ("I love this country"), wowed the crowd and sent her approval ratings soaring, never to return to earth.

Obama's speech on Thursday night was, of course, the convention's culmination, and another of those big-game moments that the candidate seemed to live for. Obama had amped up expectations by deciding to mimic John Kennedy's I960 acceptance at the Los Angeles Coliseum, delivering his before nearly one hundred thousand people at Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos. That Obama would be stirring and poised was not in question. Of course he would. The question was whether he would be effective-making the case for himself and against McCain in terms more concrete and compelling than he had so far.

After taking the outdoor stage amid the starbursty sparkle of thousands of camera flashes, Obama worked his way through an oration less thrilling than some of his best, but more strategic. He did biography, invoking his mother, his grandfather, and his grandmother, citing the last's rise from the secretarial pool to middle management "despite years of being pa.s.sed over for promotions because she was a woman" as a nod to Clinton's voters. He strafed McCain as a Bush clone who was clueless about the economy: "I don't believe Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans; I just think he doesn't know." He hinted at McCain's hotheadedness, questioning whether he had the "temperament" to be commander in chief. And he deconstructed the negative campaign his rival had been running against him. "I've got news for you, John McCain," he bellowed. "We all put our country first."

Obama happened to be speaking on the forty-fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have Dream" address on the Washington Mall, and he closed with a graceful reference to the "young preacher from Georgia" who said, "We cannot walk alone. . . . We cannot turn back." Axelrod and Gibbs, watching from the wings, were in tears. For them, the speech was one of the rare moments, in the midst of the campaign's bustle and insanity, when the magnitude of what they had accomplished sank in.

As the convention closed, Axelrod was well pleased. After the lost weeks of July and August, in which McCainworld had stolen a march on the Obamans, the Democrats had recaptured the flag.

The chattering cla.s.ses agreed with Axelrod. The convention had been a triumph. The Democrats had found their way to peace and unity. Barack and Mich.e.l.le had killed. And the Clintons had piled aboard the bandwagon-at least publicly. Hillary and Bill were still bruised and still mopey. But as they flew back east from Denver, one thing had changed. They both were starting to believe that Obama was probably going to win.

Obama believed it, too. The next morning, he rode out to the airport and boarded his campaign jet. He was headed to Pennsylvania with Biden to begin the fall campaign in earnest. The Republican convention was scheduled to start the following Monday. McCain was due to announce his running mate any minute now. The Democratic ticketmates wondered who it would be-and then, like that, Axelrod appeared in the forward cabin and broke the news.

"Wow," said Obama, picking his jaw up off the floor. "Well, I guess she's change."

But Biden looked confused. Swiveling his head, speaking for millions, he blurted out, "Who's Sarah Palin?"

Chapter Twenty.

Sarahcuda.

THE PLAN WAS ALWAYS for McCain to shock the world with his vice-presidential pick. For weeks his top advisers had been dreaming and scheming, touching bases and laying groundwork, secretly readying an announcement at once unconventional, unexpected, and unprecedented, which would throw the press and both parties for a loop and redraw the political map. The surprise that McCainworld intended to spring was a running mate named Joe Lieberman. But then something happened on the way to the Republican convention in St. Paul-and, presto chango, there was Palin.

McCainworld's core conviction was that McCain's VP choice had to be a game changer. The campaign a.s.sumed the progress it had made with "Celeb" was a temporary blip. That Obama's financial advantages would continue to create a crushing imbalance. That the three quarters of the electorate who were telling pollsters the country was on the wrong track and blaming the GOP would punish McCain at the polls. If McCain's running mate selection didn't fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race, it would be lights out.

From thirty thousand feet, the process by which McCain sought his number two looked altogether normal for many months. He'd begun back in April, with about as much time at his disposal to make his choice as any nominee in history. A tight circle of his aides, with his input, produced a long list of possibilities. A prominent Washington attorney with a reputation for probity and discretion-A. B. Culvahouse of O'Melveny and Myers-was retained to head the vetting team. As the list was winnowed, Culvahouse and Co. conducted extensive research on the surviving finalists, preparing a lengthy and intrusive questionnaire and arranging face-to-face interviews with A.B. The customary premium was placed on keeping the pick a surprise, and a plan was developed to maximize its impact: announcing the selection soon after the Democratic convention, ideally the very next day, to stop Obama's momentum cold.

Yet three of the five short-listers produced by this seemingly rigorous process failed to meet its chief goal. Mitt Romney, Charlie Crist, and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty all had their virtues, but game changers they were not. The fourth, New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, qualified for the label-but he also was a divorced, pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-gun, Jewish plutocrat who had switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican to independent as nonchalantly if as he'd been changing his loafers. Not one of them generated much enthusiasm in McCainworld, or, more important, in McCain. But, for reasons both personal and political, the fifth man did.

McCain's affection for Lieberman had only grown since the Democratic senator from Connecticut endorsed him in December. Joe became a fixture on the Straight Talk Express, traveling all over during the nomination fight, even to locales where his presence made McCain's advisers skittish. When McCain suggested that Lieberman campaign with him in South Carolina, Davis thought, G.o.d, what are we doing? A liberal, Jewish Democrat-who was Gore's running mate-in South Carolina for the Republican primary? G.o.d, what are we doing? A liberal, Jewish Democrat-who was Gore's running mate-in South Carolina for the Republican primary? But McCain wasn't remotely fazed. "Don't worry about it," he told Davis. "It won't be a problem." But McCain wasn't remotely fazed. "Don't worry about it," he told Davis. "It won't be a problem."

Lieberman was chummy, too, with McCain's other regular sidekick on the road, Lindsey Graham; the trio was dubbed the Three Amigos. Between Lieberman's Shecky Greene humor and Graham's tall tales about falling asleep during meetings with foreign leaders, McCain was in st.i.tches much of the time when his pals were around. A favorite pastime of the amigos was watching that funny YouTube video of John Edwards fixing his hair. "Let's look at it again!" McCain would command, and soon they'd all be clutching their sides, emitting peals.

The political case for picking Lieberman as VP was straightforward, if audacious. McCain's lieutenants maintained that it was essential that their candidate distance himself from Bush and reclaim the reformer's mantle. Nothing would do that better, went the argument, than presenting the country with a kind of national unity ticket, a pairing that literally embodied bipartisanship. Lieberman's support for the Iraq War made him reasonably popular among Republicans. His long tenure in Washington would reinforce the campaign's message of experience and drive the perception that McCain had made his choice with governing, not politics, in mind. The pick would fairly shout McCain's slogan, "Country First."

Many of McCain's most influential advisers-Schmidt, Graham, the former Bush White House communications director Nicolle Wallace-were strongly in favor of the Lieberman option. The worst-case scenario, Wallace contended, was that Lieberman's pro-choice stance would cause a walk-out of social conservatives from the convention, and even that would have its benefits, sending a message of independence. Astonishingly, no one among the senior staff objected to Lieberman on ideological grounds. Most of them, in fact, saw his selection as the campaign's best chance to win, a.s.suming they could get Lieberman approved at the convention.

In mid-July, Davis called Lieberman and asked if he'd be willing to be put on the short list and vetted. "Gee, this really surprises me," Lieberman said. "John doesn't have to do this to thank me for supporting him."

"No, no. He's not doing it to thank you. He's very serious about this."

"Honestly, Rick, I don't intuitively see how this could happen," Lieberman said. "Well, if he's serious, it's an honor. I'm happy to go forward."

For Lieberman, endorsing McCain had moved him further away than ever from the Democratic Party. And he had already taken another step in that direction by agreeing to speak at the GOP convention. His decision to be considered for the VP slot was driven in part by one thought: Am I ever going to have another opportunity at this? Am I ever going to have another opportunity at this? Yet, given the political climate, Lieberman couldn't also help but wonder, Yet, given the political climate, Lieberman couldn't also help but wonder, Am I going to have the unique honor to be the only person in history to lose twice as vice president on two different tickets? Am I going to have the unique honor to be the only person in history to lose twice as vice president on two different tickets?

As July turned to August, Lieberman received from Graham encouraging reports about his prospects. "Schmidt gets this," Lindsey said. "He did Schwarzenegger's campaign. He knows we have to get independents." Graham added, "Cindy is for you."

Lieberman still couldn't quite see how the McCain forces could get him through the convention, given his liberal views on almost every issue save national security. "If he chooses me, do you think I'd get nominated?" he asked Graham.

"Of course, you'd be nominated," Lindsey said. "Some minority of the convention would walk out. But I think that's not so bad for John."

McCainworld had a two-p.r.o.nged plan for minimizing the negative convention fallout. First, the pick had to be a complete surprise, sprung at the last minute, before the opposition had time to coalesce, so Lieberman could be defined on the campaign's terms. And second, McCain would agree to take the one-term pledge he'd abandoned in the final hours before his announcement in the spring of 2007, thus eliminating the risk that he would die in office during his second term and leave a Democrat in charge. McCain, once again, balked at the pledge, but his advisers a.s.sured him it would be necessary if he went with Joe. Grudgingly, McCain seemed to a.s.sent, while Lieberman readily agreed.

For much of August, McCainworld pursued the Lieberman option with singular focus. Davis and his deputies began calling delegates, state chairmen, and other party leaders around the country, feeling out their level of resistance to a pro-choice pick (without mentioning any names). Davis crafted a convention strategy to see Lieberman through-everything from a whip operation, to a sophisticated communications rollout, to a lunch with conservative grandees that Charlie Black would attend the Friday beforehand to explain the rationale and rally them to the cause.

No one was more gung ho about all this than Graham. He couldn't stop talking about it with McCain, hectoring him about why Lieberman was his only hope. With the Mormon thing, you can't pick Romney; you'll lose by eight, Graham contended. You can't pick Pawlenty-he's a nice guy, but n.o.body's ever heard of him; you'll lose by six.

McCain played his cards close to his chest. I hear you, he said. I gotcha.

But Graham's eager advocacy, and his Biden-like loose lips, wound up sinking the Lieberman option. On August 13, while Graham was traveling with McCain on a campaign swing, he floated the idea of a pro-choice running mate to a group of wary social conservatives in Michigan, asking which they would prefer: a running mate who opposed abortion but caused the GOP to lose or one who supported abortion rights and carried the party to victory?

Within days, the indiscretion had leaked, flooding the mainstream press and the Web with speculation about Lieberman and Republican pro-choice former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, sparking a flaming tizzy in the rightmost precincts of GOP Nation. "If the McCain camp does that," bellowed Rush Limbaugh, "they will have effectively destroyed the Republican Party and put the conservative movement in the bleachers."

Antic.i.p.ating this kind of reaction from the right, McCain's advisers had been quietly trying to recruit a conservative counter-chorus to sing Lieberman's praises. When they approached Karl Rove, he not only declined but told them that picking Lieberman was a terrible idea. If you nominate him, he'll probably get through the convention, Rove argued, but the battle will be b.l.o.o.d.y. The vote will be close, the story line will be bad, McCain will leave St. Paul with a split party-and no time to put it back together.

That Sunday, August 24, Rove took his concerns to Lieberman directly, pleading with the senator by phone to turn down the VP slot if McCain extended his hand.

"You know him," Rove said. "He's so stubborn he may simply get this in his mind and carry it to you. And you may be the only person who can save McCain from himself."

Lieberman listened politely and said, "I hear you. I'll think about it," and then hung up, turned to his wife, and marveled at the fantastic strangeness of the situation.

Lieberman had no intention of taking Rove's advice. But, as it happened, McCainworld was in the process of rendering the question moot. That same day, out in Arizona, McCain's senior advisers were meeting again at the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton and reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Rove was right. In a pair of meetings, one with McCain present, pollster Bill McInturff informed the group that research data he'd been studying indicated that a pro-choice pick would cost McCain votes among Republicans and gain him few, if any, among independents. With a lot of work and elbow grease, we can get Joe through the convention, Black added. But then we're going to have to spend September healing the party instead of concentrating on swing voters and Obama.

The depth and severity of the problems raised by picking Lieberman finally hit home with McCain. "I understand," he said in a tone of resignation-and from that point on, Joe's name was never seriously raised again.

That night, Schmidt and Davis drove over to McCain's Phoenix condo for dinner. The Republican convention was a week away, and they were nowhere. In the meetings earlier that day, there was no support for Romney, Crist, or Bloomberg. That left Pawlenty.

"Here's my view of the politics of it," Schmidt told McCain as they feasted on deep-fried burritos. "In any normal year, Tim Pawlenty's a great pick, a no-brainer. But this isn't a normal year. We need to have a transformative, electrifying moment in this campaign."

Schmidt and Davis then placed a new option on the table: Sarah Palin.

Palin's name had been on the longest of the long lists, but that was it. Davis told McCain that if he wanted to consider the governor of Alaska, he needed to phone her that night and ask her if she'd be willing to be vetted-and arrange to meet with her, p.r.o.nto.

McCain was impa.s.sive, but agreeable.

"I'll call her," he said. "Let's call her."

A few minutes later, McCain reached Palin on her cell phone at the Alaska State Fair. Fifteen minutes after that, McCain hung up. And Palin was on her way.

SHE WAS FORTY-FOUR YEARS old, had occupied the Alaska statehouse for twenty months, and had an 80 percent approval rating, making her, as Schmidt pointed out, "the most popular governor in America." She'd attended five colleges and been a beauty queen, a sportscaster, and the two-term mayor of Wasilla, the tiny town where she lived with her snowmobiling husband, Todd, and five children. She was pro-life, anti-stem cell research, pro-gun, and pro-states rights. She had captured the governorship by running as a reformer, pledging to clean up the corrupt clubhouse politics of Juneau, and she was often at odds with Alaska's regnant Republican kingpin, Senator Ted Stevens. Her nickname from her high school basketball days was "Sarah Barracuda." She was intensely compet.i.tive, apparently fearless, and endlessly watchable.

McCain had met Palin in February, at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors a.s.sociation in Washington. She was part of a small group of western-state governors whom McCain had convened to talk about energy policy. Later that day, he and Palin spoke again, for ten minutes or so, at a reception; two nights later, they shared a table at a fund-raising dinner and chatted a bit more. Afterward, McCain told Black that he liked the cut of Palin's jib. She's d.a.m.n impressive, he said.

It was six months later when Schmidt and Davis came to the same conclusion, almost by accident. In July, Davis, who was in charge of McCain's VP process, was casting about for unconventional possibilities and sat down one day in front of his computer with a list of names of female Republican officeholders. When he stumbled upon a video of Palin appearing on Charlie Rose Charlie Rose, Davis was bowled over. And so was Schmidt, who screened the clip and proclaimed, She's a star!

As the Lieberman option became more and more imperiled at the end of August, Schmidt and Davis-afraid that this new VP idea would leak, too-kept talking furtively between themselves about Palin. She seemed to be the answer to their prayers. In a way, she was the anti-Lieberman, hard right and totally fresh. Davis considered her a triple threat: a governor, a conservative, and a would-be historic pick. Schmidt upped the ante, saying that Palin was the only candidate who might achieve all four objectives he saw as critical for McCain: excite the GOP base, rouse women voters, create s.p.a.ce between him and Bush, and help him recapture the maverick label.

On the evening of Wednesday, August 27, three days after McCain phoned Palin, she arrived at the airport in Flagstaff, Arizona, in a private Learjet from Anchorage. Palin was ferried to the home of a wealthy McCain supporter, Bob Delgado, to meet with Schmidt and Salter.

It was now thirty-six hours from the campaign's Friday target for unveiling its veepstakes winner. But McCain was leaving the next morning, so the countdown clock was actually set closer to T minus twelve hours. At that point, Culvahouse and his team had devoted just five days to vetting Palin, digging into public records, her hastily completed seventy-four-part questionnaire, and her tax returns-less investigation than a potential a.s.sistant secretary of agriculture would receive. Palin had spent just a few hours filling out the questionnaire, which had consumed weeks for other short-listers. She had never met Schmidt. She had never met Salter. Now, in a rush, against a deadline, with little background information, the two McCain advisers had to determine if she was ready for the big stage.

After offering Palin some pizza, Schmidt commenced his grilling. Governor, he said, in Alaska you're the boss. You have a staff, advisers, and your husband, all valuable in having helped you get where you are. None of them will have a seat at the table here. Senator McCain is the boss in this effort, and your job, if you're chosen, is going to be to do what's asked of you and get comfortable real fast with the people we put around you. What's your reaction to that?

I understand completely, Palin said.

Should this go forward, Schmidt went on, by dinnertime Friday you'll be one of the most famous and recognizable people on the planet. Your life will never be the same. Have you thought about the impact on your family? Would you and they be a hundred percent committed to this project going forward?