John McCain has not just taken a risk on the inexperience of Sarah Palin, his choice of running mate in the presidential race.
He is also gambling that an ethics investigation into the Alaska governjavascript:void(0)or does not blow up in her face when the Democrat leading the inquiry delivers his report on Oct 31 - just five days before the election.
What started as a family dispute in the suburbs of Anchorage could yet determine who governs the world's most powerful nation for the next four years as Alaskan politics finds itself as the unprecedented focus of a billion-dollar election battle.
Gov Palin is under investigation for her role in the sacking last month of Walter Monegan, the state's public safety director. Mr Monegan had previously refused to fire Mrs Palin's estranged former brother-in-law, a state trooper who allegedly threatened to shoot her father during a nasty child custody battle with her sister.
Mrs Palin said that Mr Monegan was removed for failing to fill vacancies and welcomed a public examination of her actions. Mr Monegan said he was put under pressure to sack the state trooper Michael Wooten by Mr Palin's husband Todd and a senior aide.
An internal trooper investigation had found Mr Wooten guilty of several infractions - using a taser stun gun on his stepson, drinking on duty, threatening his then father-in-law and shooting a moose without a permit, the Anchorage Daily News reported yesterday.
Those events took place when Mrs Palin was mayor of Wasilla, a town of about 7,000 people which is an hour's drive north of Anchorage and a different world from the nation's capital Washington. Nonetheless, Mr McCain's White House hopes could be shaped by the outcome of Alaska's "Troopergate", as the controversy is inevitable known.
The affair has done little to dampen Mrs Palin's popularity rating which stands at a level - 80 per cent - of which governors of the other 49 states can only dream. Not that that translates into many people in the sparsely-populated state: she was elected with a total of just 115,000 votes.
There is no denying that the state's First Family is an all-Alaskan clan. In an interview with People magazine to introduce them to the American people, Mr Palin, who is one-quarter Yu'pik Eskimo, offers some revealing domestic insights.
The favorite dish on the dinner table is apparently caribou hot dogs.
"We get caribou, get 'em ground up and put them into hot dogs," said the reigning champion in the annual Iron Dog snowmobile race, known affectionately as "First Dude".
His wife's work duties have apparently prevented her hunting recently and he was due to go shooting this weekend but had to cancel the trip to help her run for the White House instead.
He also disclosed the source of their children's unusual names: "Sarah's parents were coaches and the whole family was involved in track and I was an athlete in high school, so with our first-born, I was, like, 'Track!' Bristol is named after Bristol Bay. That's where I grew up, that's where we commercial fish.
"Willow is a community there in Alaska. And then Piper, you know, there's just not too many Pipers out there and it's a cool name. And Trig is a Norse name for 'strength'."
In their home town of Wasilla, where the former beauty queen and sports journalist began her career in public life with election to the parent-teachers' association, friends and family greeted the news with a mixture of delight and disbelief.
"Holy cow. I'm just kind of speechless on the whole thing," said her father Chuck Heath. The former elementary schoolteacher shot the grizzly bear whose hide now adorns his daughter's office sofa but that is as far as his political interests stretch. "I'd rather go moose hunting than be involved with politics," he confessed.
On the campaign trail, the Democrats will highlight Mrs Palin's decision to remain neutral during the primary campaign because she disagreed with Mr McCain's opposition to oil drilling in Alaska's wildlife refuge.
But they will struggle to link her to financial scandals involving the state's Republican hierarchy, most notably the recently indicted Sen Ted Stevens, as Mrs Palin made her name fighting corruption and against what she calls the "good 'ole boy" network. She ran an "insurgent" campaign against her party establishment to win the 2006 gubernatorial election.
But Mrs Palin's sharp political elbows have earned her some enemies along the way, particularly within ranks of her own party.
"I would have preferred the McCain folks to have done a little more homework and chosen another candidate," Lyda Green, the Republican state senate president and fellow Wasilla resident, told The Sunday Telegraph. "It is hard enough going from running a town of a few thousand people to become governor. It is a huge leap to move to the national stage with such little legislative experience. But she's a quick learner and when she puts her mind to something, she is really aggressive. You know her nickname on the school basketball team? Sarah Barracuda."
