And they're off! Conventions launch campaign's final lap

ST. PAUL, Minn. — New characters are on stage. Scripts have been revised with a fall audience in mind.

And now that the back-to-back political conventions have ended, the longest-running presidential campaign in memory enters its homestretch — finally — with the promise of new drama.

The dynamics are notably different today from a couple of weeks ago, when Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama were only the presumptive nominees.

Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate changes the story line significantly, a decided curve for a Democratic team unprepared for the hockey-mom-as-attack-dog scenario.

McCain is signaling a shift in his "we're more experienced" theme by naming a vice-presidential candidate who still features the PTA on her résumé.

And there's no accounting for how Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden could shake things up as Obama's recently added sidekick, a smart and quirky character with as much propensity to upstage as to stick his foot in his mouth.

With two months, four debates (one pitting Palin against Biden) and miles to go before its conclusion, the real show starts today.

Coming out of his nominating convention in Denver, Obama already has benefited from what pollsters call "the bounce" — roughly a 5-point gain in opinion polls after four days of televised convention coverage and modest attention paid to his opponent.

Comparable results aren't in yet in the wake of McCain's acceptance speech.

The buzz from the convention, the dynamism of the new running mates — none of it matters if the candidates can't sell their stories.

"Vice presidents are picked for a reason. Biden was picked to fill a hole in Obama's résumé," said Larry Sabato, a political-science professor at the University of Virginia. "Palin was picked in order to do something John McCain has never been able to do, and that's excite the Republican base. ... They can fill the holes in the dike, but the dike has to hold as a whole."

That brings the narrative to a resurgent character, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Long a part of the Obama strategy for courting the contingent of voters who followed her in the primaries, Clinton became even more crucial to the mix the minute Palin joined the Republican ticket.

"It's going to be a race for those disaffected white, blue-collar workers and their families, with all their angst over whether they can pay the mortgage," said Tom Whalen, a Boston University political scientist and author. "Hillary better hit the campaign trail for the Democrats, or Palin is going to steal their thunder on those important issues."

Fundraising machines are going full-bore, as are the ad makers. Campaign caravans are heading to closely contested states. The entire campaign has been collapsed to nine intense weeks until Nov. 4.

As they left their respective conventions, delegates were carrying their stories home.

On the final night of the Democratic convention in Denver, Glenda Fulton of Chicago's South Side was ready to work hard for Obama.

"It's up to us to get that message out," Fulton said. "He has a lot of substance, and that's what people need to hear."

On the other side, Brad Person of Minneapolis was feeling equally energized by the GOP gathering.

"I wasn't a big McCain supporter before," said Person, a conservative Republican who attended the convention as a guest. "But after this week, I'm on board."