ST. PAUL, Minn. – Poor John McCain. Wednesday’s speech by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate, is the most-anticipated event of the Republican National Convention.

Even McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, said Tuesday the speeches by Cindy and John McCain on Thursday night “will probably be a let down” after all the excitement Wednesday.

Palin is Wednesday’s headliner, with presidential also-rans — former Govs. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Michigan and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — as her warm-up speakers.

Republicans are living in interesting times, as the supposed Chinese curse puts it. First, they had to contend with Hurricane Gustav and now news about Palin is spinning around the Xcel Energy Center.

Palin was virtually unknown to most of the country until Friday, and her picture keeps changing. Initially, she was seen as a reformer.

“As governor, I’ve stood up to the old politics as usual, to special interests, to the lobbyists, the big oil companies, and the good-ol’-boy network,” she said in Dayton on Friday.

By now, politicians must know that such declarations won’t go unchecked. Nobody forgets that Democrat Gary Hart in 1988 announced himself as a presidential candidate with highest ethical standards. When rumors later surfaced about his womanizing, Hart told reporters, “Follow me around…it’ll be boring.”

They did, and it wasn’t. A photo of Hart with a woman not his wife sitting on his knee on a boat called “Risky Business” ended his political career.

Nothing that dramatic is happening with Palin, but news reports paint her more as an old-style politician than as a maverick. As mayor of little Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist to win $27 million in federal earmarks, and she raised the sales tax. She supported the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” before she opposed it.

Anyone can change her mind. Positions do evolve. But earlier this year, Alaska, under Palin’s watch, requested nearly $200 million in earmarks in the 2009 federal budget, according to news reports.

That she’s a hard-working governor trying to secure funds for her state is no crime. And, for his part, McCain says he is not surprised by any of the news. So why did he present her as he did?

Monday, the McCain-Palin campaign announced that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was unmarried, pregnant and planning to wed. While everybody agreed it was a family matter, the fact that Bristol is not having an abortion was cause for celebration among Republicans.

To be sure, the tone of the baby-watch coverage was breathless and excessive, but that’s the way of today’s feverish 24-7 news environment.

At a breakfast Tuesday with the South Carolina and New Hampshire GOP delegations, campaign manager Davis lambasted the news media, saying it was unfair when the country was riveted on Gustav for the news media to “stir up a pot of innuendo and personal attacks” about Palin.

He said Republicans will tell their side of the Palin story Wednesday. These times are going to stay interesting.