Not since the Republicans nominated Maryland Gov. Spiro Agnew in 1968 -- decades before the advent of round-the-clock cable news and the infinite universe of the Internet -- has there been a vice presidential candidate with less national media exposure, Goldstein noted.

The novelty factor will inevitably wear off as the campaign continues, analysts said, but the natural flair for television probably won't. Palin is an animated, expressive speaker, turning up one side of her mouth in a wry smile as she makes a joke about herself, turning down the other in a can-you-believe-this frown as she rips an opponent for something he's said. And it never hurts to be pretty. (CNN cameras spotted a delegate's button: Hoosiers for the hot chick.)

''She's very good, relaxed, comfortable with the camera,'' said CBS' Greenfield. ``There was one point when the Teleprompter was eating the first sentence of every paragraph of the speech, and she just rolled with it. The joke about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull being lipstick, that was not in the text. She ad-libbed it perfectly.''

Whatever extra interest Palin creates in the election, however, is unlikely to make a difference in the outcome, most analysts agreed. ''People vote for and against the heads of the ticket, who in this case are Barack Obama and John McCain, not Joe Biden and Sarah Palin,'' said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, who found Palin's speech entertaining but ultimately meaningless.

''The only thing people remember from a convention after a few weeks is the speech of the presidential nominee,'' he said. ``There's always a hullabaloo when the vice presidential candidate is announced, and by October, they don't even know where these people are campaigning.''

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