A round-up of this morning's must-read stories, coming to you live from the Holiday Inn in sunny east St. Paul.

THE BIZARRO GOP
(John Dickerson, Slate)
The first official night of the Republican Convention was one for contradictions. Party stalwarts gathered to celebrate both members of their ticket for bucking their party. The man who waged one of the most desultory campaigns for president in recent memory gave the most rousing speech. And the night ended with a call for loyalty from a member of the opposition party. John McCain was celebrated for bucking entrenched interests, even in his own party. He was praised for standing up to Republican icon Ronald Reagan just after Reagan had been heralded with a video. Sarah Palin was also cheered for bucking her party. The crowd roared to hear that McCain would change Washington, D.C.—even though that same crowd had just cheered loudly for George Bush, the leader of their party and the person most responsible for the situation that needs changing.

GOP TIGHTENS IMAGE CONTROL AS PALIN PREPARES FOR DEBUT
(Laura Meckler, Monica Langley and Elizabeth Holmes, Wall Street Journal)
The McCain campaign scrambled to take control of the public debate over vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin, canceling her public appearances and teaming her with high-powered Republican operatives as she prepared for a speech Wednesday night that will be her first, and perhaps most important, chance to define herself to the American public. Campaign officials were heartened by the strong support the Alaska governor continued to receive in the halls of their nominating convention here, a day after the revelation that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was pregnant... But Republican officials remained nervous about how the choice was playing in the country as a whole. Some new polls showed Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama gaining a big lead in recent days following his party's convention last week.

BEFORE SPEECH, RUNNING MATE GETS SOME COACHING
(Juliet Eilperin and Robert Barnes, Washington Post)
Since Sunday night, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been holed up in her suite in the Hilton Minneapolis while a parade of Sen. John McCain's top advisers have briefed her on the nuances of his policy positions, national politics and, above all, how to introduce herself to the national audience she will address Wednesday night at the Republican convention. Sitting around a dining room table, the McCain team has talked to her about Iraq, energy and the economy, but has focused on what she should say in her speech, struggling almost as hard as she has to prepare for what will be, along with a debate in October, her main opportunity to shape the way she is viewed by voters. Not anticipating that McCain would choose a woman as his running mate, the speech that was prepared in advance was "very masculine," according to campaign manager Rick Davis, and "we had to start from scratch." 

PALIN REIGNITES CULTURE WARS
(Jim VandeHei and David Paul Kuhn, Politico)
The selection of Palin — a new heroine of social conservatives — has helped reignite not only abortion but also other flash-point issues in a way few of McCain’s other vice presidential options would have done. Conservatives see her as a kindred spirit who lives her anti-abortion words in the most profound way: by giving birth to a child she knew would be born with Down syndrome. Gun owners see her as authentically one of them: a hunter with a passion for the outdoors and gun freedom. Social liberals agree — and are proving just as ready for combat on issues that many operatives and analysts believed would have less relevance in an Obama-McCain campaign. Both nominees have said they want to transcend the remorseless ideological and cultural conflicts which shaped so much of politics in both the Clinton and Bush presidencies. 

PALIN'S START IN ALASKA: NOT POLITICS AS USUAL
(William Yardley, New York Times)
For all the admiration in Alaska for Ms. Palin, her rapid ascent from an activist in the P.T.A. to the running mate of Senator John McCain did not come without battle wounds. Her years in Wasilla, her first executive experience, reveal a mix of successes and stumbles, with Ms. Palin gaining support from a majority of residents for her drive, her faith and her accessibility but alienating others with what they said could be a polarizing single-mindedness. In Wasilla, Ms. Palin is widely praised for following through on campaign promises by cutting property taxes while improving roads and sewers and strengthening the Police Department... But her critics say too much growth too quickly has made a mess of what not long ago was homesteaded farmland. And for some, Ms. Palin’s first months in office here were so jarring — and so alienating — that an effort was made to force a recall. About 100 people attended a meeting to discuss the effort, which was covered in the local press, but the idea was dropped.

MORE: A Low-Key Outdoorsman Faces a National Role (Kate Zernike and Kim Severson, New York Times)
As “first dude,” the title he prefers, Todd Palin reinforces the average-family image that his wife, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, has sought to project. He is a member of the steelworkers’ union and has continued to work part time for BP in the oil fields of the North Slope and as a commercial fisherman since his wife was elected... And he is a champion snowmobiler known for his navigational skills — a four-time winner of the Iron Dog competition, a 2,000-mile race that is Alaska’s equivalent of the Daytona 500. He drove the last 400 miles of this year’s race with a broken arm after he was thrown 70 feet from his machine in a crash. But now he must navigate the tricky terrain of being spouse to a vice-presidential nominee while raising a family.

GOP APPEARS READY TO MOVE BEYOND BUSH
(Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post)
The party's titular leader has been largely an afterthought for Republicans this week, the speech from the White House not even carried on network television after his originally scheduled appearance Monday night was washed out by Hurricane Gustav. The way things happened may reflect some of the ambivalence that Bush's party -- and Sen. John McCain's advisers -- feel about the president. While many delegates largely respect Bush for his values and wartime leadership, he has bequeathed McCain a difficult political landscape that practically demands that the senator from Arizona run a campaign distancing himself from the Bush administration. By almost every objective standard, Bush will leave his party worse off than it was when he was nominated eight years ago in Philadelphia. 

MCCAIN'S EFFORT TO WOO CONSERVATIVES IS PAYING OFF
(David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times)
Moments after Senator John McCain announced his running mate — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, an outspoken abortion opponent — his campaign sprang into action to fan flames of enthusiasm among his party’s demoralized conservative supporters. At a lunch Friday in Minneapolis, two of his top advisers — Charlie Black, a veteran political operative, and Dan Coats, a former senator from Indiana — were extolling Ms. Palin’s virtues to about 150 influential evangelicals as evidence of Mr. McCain’s ideological commitments. That night, at a larger gathering of Christian conservatives, the campaign sent Frank Donatelli, vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, to reinforce the message: Mr. McCain would be a “pro-life” president, which could make a crucial difference with two Supreme Court justices close to retirement. (Mr. McCain has said that he would appoint conservative jurists and run a “pro-life” administration but that abortion would not be a “litmus test” for judicial nominees.)

PALIN PITCHES SAM'S CLUB TENT
(Gerald F. Seib, Wall Street Journal)
Regardless of how it plays out, the Palin pick was designed in part to reinforce the image of Republican presidential nominee John McCain as a maverick agent of change who is willing to shake up the party. And it was designed in part to put forth a vice presidential nominee whose profile -- mother, hunting enthusiast with a blue-collar husband -- would appeal to blue-collar Republicans, moderate Democrats and independents the party badly needs to woo this year. Those happen to be the same goals of reformers within the party who have been clamoring for an updated message. They argue that the party has benefited enormously in the last generation by luring in millions of middle-class and blue-collar Americans who embraced the party's culturally conservative message. But, the reformers argue, the party's economic message hasn't been adjusted to appeal to these nontraditional Republicans. Now, they say, the party has to speak more directly to them, particularly as Democratic nominee Barack Obama hones a campaign message -- built around a middle-class tax cut -- that is designed to address deep-seated middle-class economic anxieties.