The first woman on a Republican presidential ticket is a former beauty pageant contestant and self-dubbed hockey mom who later took on powerful members of her party and has developed a maverick image in the mold of GOP standard-bearer John McCain.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 44, has enjoyed little time on the national stage and is not well-known to much of her party. That’s led many to call her selection by McCain a huge risk.

Bringing the fresh-faced Washington outsider onto the ticket allows McCain to rebut Democratic claims that his candidacy represents a third term for President Bush. And it helps bolster their push for female voters and neutralize the groundbreaking candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the first black nominee of a major political party.

“In choosing Gov. Palin, McCain has put Washington on notice — he is serious about shaking up the status quo and leading a movement for reform on behalf of families and small businesses,” said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader.

McCain calls her a “trailblazer and a reformer.”

But it allows Democrats the opportunity to reject claims that their nominee, the first-term Obama, lacks experience for the White House.

“Certainly the choice of Palin puts to rest any argument about inexperience on the Democratic team, and while Palin is a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In choosing Palin, Republicans are trying to tout her blue-collar background and her rags-to-riches story, much like Democrats did at their convention with the working-class roots of Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.), who was born in Scranton, Pa. Palin is married to a union member, her father was a science teacher who used to hunt moose before work and she enjoys hunting, fishing and snowmobiling. And her oldest son, Track, will be deployed to Iraq on Sept. 11.

Her rural roots could help her with a constituency skeptical of McCain’s opposition to major farm legislation and subsidies for ethanol.

Palin won the Miss Wasilla contest in 1984, and competed for the Miss Alaska beauty contest, of which she was a runner-up. (She also won Miss Congeniality in that contest and received a scholarship to study journalism at the University of Idaho.) In late 2007, she posed for a spread in Vogue magazine.

After returning to Alaska and starting a family, Palin joined the parent-teacher association before serving two terms on the Wasilla City Council from 1992-1996. And in 1996, she became mayor of Wasilla, which has a population of less than 10,000.

“I was just your average hockey mom in Alaska,” Palin said at a Friday rally.

Running on a platform to clean up the scandals embroiling prominent Republican members in Alaskan politics, Palin upset Republican incumbent Frank Murkowski before winning the governorship in the fall of 2006.

Palin could help assuage the GOP base, which still has reservations about McCain’s candidacy. Palin is a lifelong National Rifle Association member, touts her anti-abortion rights position and calls for limited government spending.

She seemed to hear the outcry from McCain and other conservatives over the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” earmark in Alaska by not spending $200 million in state money to help complete the project. But like most Republicans, she is a strong supporter of opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, which McCain opposes.

“Gov. Palin is a strong conservative with executive experience who has cut wasteful spending, opposed earmarks and shown courage in taking on corruption in her own party,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the leader of the Senate’s conservative steering committee.

Aside from assuaging the base, the Palin choice gives the McCain campaign a clear opening to attract disenchanted female supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

“It turns out the women in America aren’t finished yet” with making cracks in the glass ceiling, Palin said.

“The only similarity between her and Hillary Clinton is that they are both women,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “On the issues, they could not be further apart.”

Palin said in her time in office, she has “stood up to the old politics-as-usual, and I’ve stood up to the … good ol’ boy network.”

Although she has distanced herself from the political scandals in the state, including the criminal indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens (R), she has some baggage of her own.

Palin faces a state investigation into her controversial firing of a public safety commissioner. State lawmakers have approved up to $100,000 to be spent on whether Palin retaliated against the former commissioner for not firing a state trooper entangled in a bitter divorce and custody battle with Palin’s sister.

Palin has denied any wrongdoing, and McCain’s campaign said she has “nothing to hide.”