Talk about the tail wagging the dog! The way John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, has grabbed the national spotlight is unprecedented, with opportunities and hazards for him.

In the short run, the phenomenon has plucked the McCain campaign from its pre-convention doldrums, generating huge television coverage and crowds at joint events that rival or surpass the mob scenes that met Barack Obama everywhere throughout the primary season.

Even the decision to squirrel Palin away from exposure to reporters until her interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson last night became major news. The campaign got optimum air time for her by spreading Gibson's exclusive across three ABC news shows.

Not since Bill Clinton's strategists in 1992 decided to send him out in tandem with Al Gore from their convention in New York and the pair became an instant hit with their stump routine, has a vice-presidential nominee played such a feature role. The difference then was that Gore was clearly cast as the second banana.

In the 1988 campaign, George H.W. Bush after introducing the giddy Dan Quayle as his choice, was seldom seen with his running mate. Quayle committed several verbal gaffes during his solo stumping.

There was a time in the Republic's earlier years when presidential nominees did not campaign themselves, leaving the chore to surrogates. In 1900, when President William McKinley conducted his campaign from his front porch in Ohio, running mate Theodore Roosevelt zestfully jumped in against Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, referring to him as "my opponent."

But when presidential nominees began to campaign in their own behalf, running mates were customarily shunted to the boondocks on their own.

The early word from the McCain campaign has been that Palin has been such a hit that she may stump at the side of the presidential nominee more often than not. There are some concerns that when she goes off on her own, McCain's crowds could wither.

Much will depend on how Palin runs the gauntlet of interviews and news conferences ahead that will be hard to duck. She demonstrated at the national convention and since then her ability to spin out her personal history as a narrative. But it may be different when she is confronted with tough questions from the news media.

Spot investigations into Palin's record as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska have already caught her in overstatements, and some of her views on religious influences in politics have also begged for explanations.

The McCain strategists have shown they are poised to give her plenty of help where they can. As one diversion, they seized on Obama's rather unartful use of the old expression "lipstick on a pig" about dressing up a bad idea, once used by McCain himself. His team suggested Obama meant it as a slur against her. He may be a bit careless with words at times, but he's not that stupid.

The Democratic nominee dismissed the whole business as part of "the silly season" that is dominating what should be a dead-serious campaign on how to extricate the country from a calamitous war and cope with a tail-spinning economy. But he needs to get his campaign focused back on the man he is running against.

That will certainly occur by Sept. 26, when Obama and McCain hold their first debate at the University of Mississippi. The television audience may be just as large six nights later, when Palin and Joe Biden debate in St. Louis. Talk about a silly season.

Jules Witcover's latest book, on the Nixon-Agnew relationship, "Very Strange Bedfellows," has just been published by Public Affairs Press. Reach him at juleswitcover@earthlink.net.