Forecast: High pressure system

Politics | Palin and Gustav take Republican convention by storm, but political experts say it will take hurricane strength for McCain ticket to weather the general campaign | Jamie Dean

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ST. PAUL, Minn.—On a rainy afternoon in downtown St. Paul, Minn., one of the rowdier parties of the Republican National Convention (RNC) opened with a four-piece band, an open bar, and long-time evangelical leader Phyllis Schlafly.

Social conservatives and evangelicals decked out in red-white-and-blue and flashing American flag buttons packed the second-floor ballroom of the swanky Crowne Plaza Hotel at a reception for pro-life Republicans overjoyed about one person: Gov. Sarah Palin.

The crowd of nearly 800 RNC delegates and other Republicans paid $95 each to attend the standing-room-only event where Palin was originally slated to speak. The pro-life Alaska governor would not make an appearance, but only because she had accepted a more pressing assignment just four days earlier: running for the Republican vice presidency. Schlafly told the cheering crowd that Palin had energized conservatives once sluggish over Sen. John McCain's presidential bid: "All those people who were holding back, not sure, are now excited and ready to go to work and elect the McCain-Palin ticket this year."