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McCain chose her, Kristol predicted on Fox News Sunday that “McCain’s going to put Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket.” He described her as “fantastic,” saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton’s supporters. He pointed out that she was a “mother of five” and a reformer. “Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin,” he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace, finally had to ask Kristol, “Can we please get off Sarah Palin?”
    The next day, however, Kristol was still talking about Palin on Fox. “She could be both an effective vice presidential candidate and an effective president,” he said. “She’s young, energetic.” On a subsequent Fox News Sunday , Kristol again pushed Palin when asked whom McCain should pick: “Sarah Palin, whom I’ve only met once but I was awfully impressed by—a genuine reformer, defeated the establishment up there. It would be pretty wild to pick a young female Alaska governor, and I think, you know, McCain might as well go for it.” On July 22, again on Fox, Kristol referred to Palin as “my heartthrob.” He declared, “I don’t know if I can make it through the next three months without her on the ticket.” Reached last week, Kristol pointed out that just before McCain picked Palin he had ratcheted back his campaign a little; though he continued to tout her, he also wrote a New York Times column promoting Senator Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut.
    On October 6, in another Times column, Kristol cryptically acknowledged having been entertained by the governor. He mentioned meeting Palin “in far more relaxed circumstances, in Alaska over a year ago.” The column featured one of the few interviews that Palin has granted to the national media since becoming McCain’s running mate. Kristol quoted Palin saying that the debate had been a “liberating” experience, then wrote, “Shouldn’t the public get the benefit of another Biden-Palin debate, or even two? If there’s difficulty finding a moderator, I’ll be glad to volunteer.”
    On August 1, 2007, a few weeks after the Weekly Standard cruise departed from Juneau, Palin hosted a second boatload of pundits, this time from a cruise featuring associates of National Review . Her guests, arriving on the MS Noordam , included Rich Lowry, the magazine’s editor and a syndicated columnist; Robert Bork, the conservative legal scholar and former federal judge; John Bolton, who served as the Bush administration’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2004 to 2006; Victor Davis Hanson, a conservative historian who is reportedly a favorite of Vice President Dick Cheney; and Dick Morris, the ideologically ambidextrous political consultant, who writes a column for The Hill and appears regularly on Fox News.
    As Jack Fowler, National Review ’s publisher, recalled it, when the guest speakers were invited to come to a special reception at the governor’s mansion, “We said, ‘Sure!’ There’s only so much you can do in Juneau.” The mansion itself, he said, was modest—“not exactly Newport.” But the food was great, and included an impressive spread of salmon. Palin, who circulated nimbly through the room, and spoke admiringly of National Review , made a good impression. Fowler said, “This lady is something special. She connects. She’s genuine. She doesn’t look like what you’d expect. My thought was, Too bad she’s way up there in Alaska, because she has potential, but to make things happen you have to know people.”
    Hanson, the historian, recalled Palin in high heels, “walking around this big Victorian house with rough Alaska floors, saying, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah.’ ” She was “striking,” he said. “She has that aura that Clinton, Reagan, and Jack Kennedy had—magnetism that comes through much more strongly when you’re in the same room.” He was delighted that Palin described herself as a fan of history, and as a reader of